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JOSEPH MCOOHO 



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Tamo'Shanter 



ALL ABOUT 

TAM O^ SHANTER 



WITH BRIEF PAPERS ON 

Alloway Kirk, ** Souter Johnny," 
Captain Grose, etc. 



EDITED BY 

JOHN D. ROSS, LL. D. 

Author of ** Scottish Poets in America" and Editor 

of *' Burns' s Highland Mary" '' Burns' s 

Clarinda" * Burns' s Bonnie Jean " etc. 

• With an Introduction by Charles H. Govan 



THE RAEBURN BOOK CO. 

185 Grand Street 

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY 

1900 



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ti%> 



PRESS OF 

J. W. F. BOWLES 

BROOKLYN 






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THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
TO 

HUNTER MacCULLOCH, Esq. 

(ex-president of the BROOKLYN WRITERS' CLUB; AUTHOR OF 
ROBERT burns; A CENTENARY ODE;" "FROM DAWN TO DUSK'," ETC.) 

IN APPRECIATION OF HIS GENIUS AS A POET, 

HIS NOBLE CHARACTER AS A MAN, AND HIS INTENSE 

ENTHUSIASM FOR 

Scotland and Robert Burns. 

JOHN D. ROSS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



BY CHARLES H. GOVAN. 



The Story of "Tarn o' Shanter" is very much like 
that of "Rip Van Winkle." Indeed, "Eip Van 
Winkle" has been called ''the Dutch Tarn o' Shanter." 
Rip was fond of the bottle. Tarn was equally fond 
of the bottle. Rip's wife was a scold. Tarn's spouse 
was also a scold. Rip met with a supernatural ad- 
venture while abroad in a thunder-storm, and that is 
precisely what befell Tam. 

The hero of this poetic tale — which, like "Hal- 
lowe'en," reflects the superstition of the Scottish 
peasantry — was Douglas Graham, of the farm of 
Shanter; but it is not necessary to call him by any 
other title than the rhythmical one bestowed on him 
by the poet. 

Tipplers are like boys, never happy unless away 
from home ; and so, one day Tam o' Shanter escaped 
from his wife's clamorous tongue and, mounting his 
gray mare Meg, galloped off as fast as he could to 



VIII. INTRODUCTION. 

the neighboring town of Ayr. Here the truant lost 
no time. He was bent on a spree, which could only 
be enjoyed to the full in the society of that choice 
spirit, Souter Johnny — Shoemaker Johnny — his com- 
panion in many a long carouse. So the souter was 
beguiled from his last, and the congenial pair straight- 
way betook themselves to their favorite inn, where a 
warm welcome and the best of ' ' yill " awaited them . 
When the evening closed in Tam found himself 
snugly seated at a fireside far more dear to him than 
his own and almost as familiar — the souter at his 
elbow, convulsing him with the queerest stories ; a 
jolly boniface supplying him with foaming draughts 
of powerful Scotch ale; and a buxom landlady beam- 
ing upon him through fragrant tobacco-mists. Never 
was the souter more deliciously droll ; never did ale 
taste better ; never was the landlord's laugh more 
unctuous or the landlady's smile more gracious — she 
was a much more agreeable woman, Tam could not 
help thinking, than Mrs. Graham. And Tam made 
the most of the occasion. Like the truant boy at the 
circus, he took no thought of the reckoning to come. 
Sufficient for the hour was the enjoyment thereof. 
His zest was as great as though the revelry were 
taking place under his own roof tree, with the 



INTRODUCTION. IX. 

sanction of a compliant wife. Nay, it was greater, 
for is it not the fruit which is forbidden that most de- 
lights the human palate ? In his boisterous gayety 
Tam heeded not the specter which obtruded upon the 
feast. But we may be sure that the specter became 
more menacing as the evening advanced ; that she 
took on the form and manner of his objurgatory 
spouse ; that she dropped her poison, in increasing 
doses, into every cup ; that she jealously interrupted 
his delightful tete-a-tete with his comely hostess ; 
that she whispered in his ear of the long and dismal 
ride to come, with a curtain-lecture of more than or- 
dinary length and bitterness at the end ; and that at 
last, when the dreaded hour of midnight arrived, she 
pointed imperiously to the door and bade him begone ! 
We may easily fancy the drunk but docile farmer as 
he " stachered out " in obedience to the mandate and 
floundered into the saddle, his jovial host standing 
ready with a stirrup-cup ( supplementary to the doch 
andoris); the repeated admonitions screamed from 
the doorway by the anxious hostess ; the concerted 
farewell ; and the parting joke flung after him by the 
inexhaustible souter, as Meg started on her record- 
breaking run. 
When Tam cleared the friendly shelter of the town 



X. INTRODUCTION. 

and reached the open country, he found himself at 
the mercy of the wildest storm that ever blew in 
Scotland — at least in his generation. The lightning 
flared, the thunder crashed, the rain rattled, and the 
wind howled. The farmer's homeward course lay- 
past the scene of many a dreadful story, told late at 
night by smouldering peat fires to shuddering listen- 
ers. Here an unfortunate pedler had perished 
miserably in the snow ; a little farther on, where a 
huge rock stood near a clump of birch trees, a drunk- 
en "ne'er-do-weel" had broken his useless neck; 
some distance farther on a party of hunters had one 
day found a murdered babe ; on yet farther was an 
abandoned well, guarded by an aged hawthorn tree, 
where a wretched old crone had hanged herself. But 
the most fearsome landmark of all was Kirk Allo- 
way; a little, old, ruined church near a bridge, span- 
ning the river Doon, over which Tam had to cross. 
Any old wife could tell you that this was the worst 
haunted place in all Scotland. It is probable that as 
Tam charged headlong through the inferno of war- 
ring elements, his confused wits busy with excuses to 
be offered to the frowning Kate, he wished himself 
well past this dreaded spot. Emerging at length 
from an adjacent wood into full view of the once- 



INTRODUCTION. XI. 

dacred edifice, he looked anxiously toward it and be- 
held a spectacle that might well have frozen the blood 
of any man whose veins were not superheated by 
"guid Scotch drink." The old church was ablaze 
with a weird light, streaming from candles held in 
the rigid hands of dead men, who stood in open coffins 
ranged against the walls; and through the doorless 
doorway and the windowless casements he beheld a 
concourse of warlocks and witches dancing like mad 
about a long table, on which was displayed an assort- 
ment of corpses and other cheerful objects. The 
music proceeded from a huge black animal, the shape 
of a dog and the size of a bear, ensconced in a win- 
dow-seat at the eastern extremity of the kirk ; which 
Tam knew instinctively to be the great enemy of man- 
kind himself ^f or surely no one else could have played 
the bagpipes with such unearthly skill. Drink had 
made Tam insensible to fear. Instead of fleeing as 
a sober man would have done, he rode boldly for- 
ward. The facetiously inclined may see in this 
another point of similarity between the heroes of 
Burns and Irving, and declare that Tam here showed 
the same quality that distinguished the imperturbable 
Rip Van Winkle in his colloquy with the ghostly 
pirates, namely, Dutch courage. The hard ride and 



XII. INTRODUCTION. 

the startling character of his adventure had partially 
cleared his brain, but the scene before him affected 
his senses with a new madness. 

It is related of the poet Longfellow that when he 
returned to America in the early forties, * ' he found 
the world drunken with the grace of Fanny Elssler." 
It was this species of intoxication which now seized 
upon Tarn. For prominent in the dance — her beauty 
and shapeliness accentuated by her gruesome sur- 
roundings — was a young and graceful witch possessed 
of extraordinary strength and agility. Her attire 
was of the scantiest, and in her wild abandon she ex- 
ecuted such astounding leaps, bounds, and pirouettes 
as would have made any opera premiere, or even the 
adored Elssler herself, turn green with envy. Tarn 
became so enthusiastic at her performance that he 
involuntarily applauded — and betrayed his presence. 
Instantly the lights were extinguished, and forth upon 
the midnight air, their phosphorescent forms gleaming 
through the darkness, came the whole infernal host, 
all eager to fasten their clutches on the unhappy 
mortal who had dared to disturb their orgies. Tam 
wheeled his horse and made for the bridge. Any one 
versed in the folk-lore of Scotland will tell you that 
if you are pursued under like circumstances and you 



INTRODUCTION. XIII. 

can manage to reach the middle of a running stream, 
you are safe — the arch-fiend himself is powerless 
against you. The keystone of the bridge became, 
therefore, Tam's objective point; and to it he urged 
his sturdy mare with voice, whip, and spur. 

Under the influence of terror Meg developed, a 
speed that might easily have won her the Derby. 
But the poor beast was not striving against earthly 
competitors. Nannie, the athletic witch, showed her- 
self as superior in the chase as in the dance, and 
gained most appallingly on poor Tarn. Horse, rider, 
and witch reached the bridge at almost the same 
instant; and just as Meg was in the act of clearing 
the keystone the witch caught her by the tail, which 
instantly came off in the infernal grasp as though 
blasted by a lightning stroke. But the mischief ended 
here. The river Doon now lay between the baffled 
demons and then- intended victim. The tailless Mag- 
gie and her now thoroughly sobered master finished 
their homeward journey in safety; and it is to be 
hoped that, as water had proved to be Tam's sal- 
vation on this occasion, he was partial to it ever after- 
ward. 



CONTENTS. 



Tam o' Shanter. Robert Burns. . . 17 

Witch Stories Relating to Allow ay Kirk, 

Robert Burns. . . .27 

How Tam o' Shanter Came to be Written. 

Gilbert Burns. . . .33 

The Real Tam o' Shanter and Souter 

Johnny. Robert Chambers. . , ^5, 

Tam o' Shanter. J. M. Murdoch . Sf 

Captain Grose. Kay's Edinburgh Por- 
traits. . . . .46 

Captain Grose. Cunningham's Life and 

Land of Burns. . . .51 

Captain Grose, the Antiquary. Echo. 55 

AuLD Kirk Alloway. Benjamin F. Leggett. 58 

A Brief Review. Allan Cunningham. . 60 

The Galloway Cutty-Sark. John Gibson 

Lockhart. . . . .64 

Why "Tam" was Written. John Stuart 

Blackie. . . . . 6& 

The Matchless Tale. Principal Shairp. 70 

" Tam o' Shanter" in a Dress Suit. Robert 

Ford. . . . .74 



CONTENTS. XV. 

PAGE 

BuRNS's Masterpiece. George Savage. 79 

At Allow ay. Benjamin F. Leggett. . 82 

Notes on Tam o' Shanter. John Muir. 83 

The Immortal Tale of Tam o' Shanter. 

Blackie's Edition of Burns. , 92 

Souter Johnny's Bible. Mr. Murdoch. - 102 

At Allow ay's Haunted Kirk. . 105 

Thom's Statues of "Tam "and "Souter" 

IN America. . . . 109 

The Original Version of Tam o' Shanter. 113 

The Route Pursued by Tam. James Pater son. 115 

Alloway Kirk. Chambers's Journal. 119 

Tam o' Shanter. Cunningham's Life and 

Land of Burns. . . .123 

Burns and Captain Grose. John H. Ingram. 128 

Tam o' Shanter's Ride. George Eyre Todd. 131 

Tam o' Shanter. Alexander Webster. . 138 

A Medieval Tam o' Shanter. Glasgow 166 
Herald. 



TAM O' SHANTER. 

A TALE. 

" Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke." 

GAWIN DOUGLAS. 

When chapman billies leave the street, 
And drouthy niebors, niebors meet ; 
As market days are wearing late, 
An' folk begin to tak the gate ; 
While we sit bousing at the nappy, 
An' getting fou and unco happy, 
We think na on the lang Scots miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles. 
That lie between us and our hame, 
Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame, 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 

This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter, 
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter 
(Auld Ayr, whom ne'er a town surpasses. 
For honest men and bonnie lasses). 



1 8 TAM 0' SHANTER. 

O Tarn ! had'st thou but been sae wise, 
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advise ! 
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, 
A bletherin, blusterin, drunken blellum ; 
That frae November till October, 
Ae market-day thou wasna sober ; 
That ilka melder wi' the miller, 
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; 
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on 
The smith and thee gat roaring f ou on ; 
That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday, 
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday. 
She prophesied, that, late or soon. 
Thou wad be found, deep drown'd in Doon, 
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, 
By Alio way's auld, haunted kirk. 

Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet, 
To think how mony counsels sweet. 
How mony lengthen'd, sage advices, 
The husband frae the wife despises ! 

But to our tale : Ae market night, 
Tam had got planted unco right. 
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, 



TAM 0' SHANTER. 19 



Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely ; 
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, 
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ; 
Tarn lo'ed him like a vera brither ; 
They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
The night drave on wi, sangs an' clatter ; 
And aye the ale was grovrdng better. 
The landlady and Tarn grew gracious, 
Wi' favors secret, sweet and precious : 
The souter tauld his queerest stories ; 
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : 
The storm without might rair and rustle, 
Tam didna mind the storm and whistle. 



Care, mad to see a man sae happy. 
E'en dro^vn'd himsel amang the nappy. 
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure. 
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure 
Kings may be blest but Tam was glorious. 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious! 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow falls in the river, 



20 TAM O' SHANTER. 

A moment white — then melts for ever ; 

Or like the borealis race, 

That flit ere you can point their place ; 

Or like the rainbow's lovely form 

Evanishing amid the storm. 

Nae man can tether time nor tide, 

The hour approaches Tam maun ride — 

That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, 

That dreary hour Tam mounts his beast in; 

And sic a night he took the road in. 

As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last; 
The rattling showers rose on the blast ; 
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd; 
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellow'd: 
That night, a child might understand, 
The deil had business on his hand. 



Weel mounted on his gray mare Meg, 
A better never lifted leg, 
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire. 
Despising wind and rain and fire ; 
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet, 



TAM O' SHANTEB. 21 

Whiles crooning o'er an auld Scots sonnet, 
Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, 
Lest bogles catch him unawares ; 
Kirk AUoway was drawing nigh, 
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry. 

By this time he was cross the ford, 
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd ; 
And past the birks and meikle stane, 
Whare drunken Charlie brak 's neck-bane ; 
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn; 
And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. 
Before him Doon pours all his floods, 
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods. 
The lightnings flash frae pole to pole. 
Near and more near the thunders roll. 
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, 
Kirk Alloway seem'd in a bleeze, 
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing, 
And loud resounded mirth and dancing. 

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! 
What dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 



22 TAM O^SHANTER. 

Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil; 

Wi' usquebae, we'll face the devil ! 

The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle, 

Fair play, he car'd nae deils a boddle, 

But Maggie stood, right sair astonished, 

Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd, 

She ventur'd forward on the light ; 

And, wow ! Tarn saw an unco sight ! 

Warlocks and witches in a dance ; 

Nae cotillon, brent new frae France, 

But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels 

Put life and mettle in their heels. 

A winnock-bunker in the east. 

There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast; 

A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, 

To gie them music was his charge : 

He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl, 

Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. 

Coffins stood round, like open presses, 

That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; 

And (by some devilish cantrip sleight) 

Each in its cauld hand held a light. 

By which heroic Tam was able 

To note upon the haly table, 

A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns ; 



TAM O' SHANTER. 23 

Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns ; 
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, 
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; 
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red-rusted : 
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted ; 
A garter, which a babe had strangled : 
A knife a father's throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son of life bereft, 
The grey hairs yet stack to the heft ; 
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu'. 
Which even to name wad be unlawfu'. 

As Tammie glower'd, amaz'd and curious, 
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious ; 
The piper loud and louder blew, 
The dancers quick and quicker flew. 
They reel'd, they set, they crossed, they cleekit. 
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, 
And coost her duddies to the wark, 
And linket at it in her sark ! 

Now Tarn, O Tam ! had thae been queans, 
A' plump and strapping in their teens ! 
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, 
Been snaw-white seventeen hundred linnen ! — 



J4 TAM O' SHANTBR. 

Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, 
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, 
I wad ha gi'en them off my hurdies, 
For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies ! 
But withered beldams, auld and droll, 
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, 
Louping an' flinging on a crummock, 
I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 

But Tam kend what was what f u, brawlie 
There was ae winsome wench and walie, 
That night enlisted in the core, 
Lang after kend on Carrick shore ; 
(For mony a beast to dead she shot 
And perish'd mony a bonnie boat, 
And shook baith meikle corn and bear. 
And held the country-side in fear) ; 
Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn, 
That while a lassie she had worn, 
In longitude tho' sorely scanty. 
It was her best, and she was vauntie. 
Ah ! little kend thy reverend grannie. 
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, 
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches), 
Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches ! 



TAM O'SHANTER. 25 

But here my Muse her wing maun cow'r, 
Sic flights are far beyond her power; 
To sing how Nannie lap and flang 
(A souple jade she was and Strang), 
And how Tarn stood, like ane bewitch'd, 
And thought his very een enrich'd ; 
Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain, 
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main : 
Till first ae caper, syne anither, 
Tam tint his reason a' thegither, 
And roars out: " Weel done, Cutty-sark!" 
And in an instant all was dark : 
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied. 
When out the hellish legion sallied. 



As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke, 
When plundering herds assail their byke ; 
As open pussie's mortal foes, 
When, pop ! she starts before their nose ; 
As eager runs the market-crowd. 
When " Catch the thief !" resounds aloud: 
So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 
Wi' mony an eldritch skreech and hollow. 



26 TAM O' SHANTEE. 

Ah, Tarn! ah, Tarn! thou'll get thy fairin! 
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin ! 
In vain thy Kate awaits thy coming ! 
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman ! 
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
And win the key-stane o' the brig ; 
There, at them thou thy tail may toss, 
A running stream they darena cross. 
But ere the key-stane she could make, 
The fient a tail she had to shake ! 
For Nannie, far before the rest. 
Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 
And flew at Tarn wi' furious ettle ; 
But little wist she Maggie's mettle ! 
Ae spring brought off her master hale, 
But left behind her ain gray tail : 
The carlin claught her by the rump. 
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, 
nk man, and mother's son, take heed : 
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd. 
Or cutty-sarks rin in your mind. 
Think ! ye may buy the joys o'er dear. 
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare. 



WITCH STORIES 

Relating to Alloway Kirk. 

BY ROBERT BURNS. 

' ' Among the witch stories which I have heard re- 
lating to Alloway Kirk," said the poet in a letter to 
Captain Grose, " I distinctly remember only two or 
three. Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls 
of wind and bitter blasts of hail — in short, on such a 
night as the devil would choose to take the air in— a 
farmer or a farmer's servant was plodding and plash- 
ing homeward with the plough-irons on his shoulder, 
having been getting some repairs on them at a neigh- 
bouring smithy. His way lay by the Kirk of Allo- 
way, and being rather on the anxious look-out in ap- 
proaching the place, so well known to be a favorite 
haunt of the devil, and the devil's friends and emis- 
saries, he was struck aghast by discovering, through 
the horrors of the stormy night, a light which on his 
nearer approach plainly showed itself to proceed from 
the haunted edifice. Whether he had been fortified 
from above on his devout suppUcation, as is customary 



28 TAM O'SHANTER. 

with people when they suspect the immediate presence 
of Satan, or whether according to another custom, 
he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not 
pretend to determine ; but so it was that he ventured 
to go up to — nay, into the very kirk. As luck would 
have it his temerity came off unpunished. The 
members of the infernal junto were all out on some 
midnight business or other, and he saw nothing but a 
kind of kettle or caldron depending from the roof 
over the fire, sinmiering some heads of unchristened 
children, Hmbs of malefactors, etc., for the business 
of the night. It was in for a penny in a pound with 
the honest ploughman, so without ceremony he un- 
hooked the caldron from off the fire and pouring out 
its damnable ingredients, inverted it on his head and 
carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the 
family a living evidence of the truth of the story. 

' ' Another story which I can prove to be equally 
authentic was as follows : 

" On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer 
from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by 
the very gate of Alio way kirkyard, in order to cross 
the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two 
or three hundred yards farther on than the said gate, 



TAM O' SHANTER. 29 

had been detained by his business, till by the time he 
reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, between 
night and morning. 

* ' Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming 
from the kirk, yet as it is a well-known fact that to 
turn back on these occasions is running by far the 
greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on 
his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk- 
yard, he was surprised and entertained through the 
ribs and arches of an old Gothic window, which still 
faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily 
footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, 
who was keeping them all alive with the power of his 
bagpipe. The farmer stopping his horse to observe 
them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many 
old women of his acquaintance and neighborhood. 
How the gentleman was dressed tradition does not 
say, but the ladies were all in their smocks ; and one 
of them happening unluckily to have a smock which 
was considerably too short to answer all the purposes 
of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled 
that he involuntarily burst out with a loud laugh: 
*' Weel luppen, Maggie wi' the short sark!" and recol- 
lecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top 
of his speed. I need not mention the imiversally 



30 TAM O' SHANTER. 

known fact that no diabolical power can pursue you 
beyond the middle of a running stream. Luckily it 
was for the poor farmer that the river Doon was so 
near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse which 
was a good one, against he reached the middle of the 
arch of the bridge, and consequently the middle of the 
stream the pursuing vengeful hags were so close at his 
heels, that one of them actually sprang to seize him, but 
it v/as too late, nothing was on her side of the stream 
but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way at 
her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning, 
but the farmer was beyond her reach. However the 
unsightly tail-less condition of the vigorous steed was 
to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful 
warning to the Carrick farmers not to stay too late 
in Ayr markets. 

"The last relation I shall give, though equally true, 
is not so well identified as the two former with regard 
to the scene, but as the best authorities give it for 
Alloway, I shall relate it. 

"On a summer's evening about the time nature has 
put on her sables to mourn the expiry of the cheer- 
ful day, a shepherd-boy belonging to a farm in the 
immediate neighborhood of Alloway Kirk, had just 
folded his charge and was returning home. As he 



TAM O' SHANTER. 31 

passed the kirk, in the adjoining field, he fell in with 
a crowd of men and women who were busy pulling 
stems of the plant ragwort. He observed that as 
each person pulled a ragwort, she or he got astride of 
it and called out, ' up horsie!' on which the ragwort 
flew off, like Pegasus through the air with its rider. 
The foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort, and cried 
with the rest, ' up horsie!' and strange to tell, away 
he flew with the company. The first stage at which 
the cavalcade stopt was a merchant's wine cellar in 
Bordeaux, where without saying by your leave, they 
quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford until 
the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, 
threatened to throw light on the matter, and fright- 
ened them away from their carousals. 

"The poor shepherd lad being equally a stranger to 
the scene and liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk, 
and when the rest took horse, he fell asleep, and was 
found so next day by some of the people belonging to 
the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch 
asking him what he was, he said, such a one's herd 
in Alio way, and by some means or other getting home 
again, he lived to tell the world the wondrous tale. " 



This letter is interesting," says Alexander Smith, 



32 TAM 0' SHANTEB. 

"as showing the actual body of tradition on which 
Burns had to work — the soil out of which the con- 
summate poem grew like a flower. And it is worthy 
of notice also how out of the letter, some of the best 
things in the poem have come ; ' such a night as the 
devil would choose to take the air in', being for in- 
stance, the suggestion of the couplet, 

That night a child might understand, 
The Deil had business on his hand. 

It is pleasant to know that Bums thought well of 
'Tamo'Shanter'." 



HOW TAM O'SHANTER CAME 
TO BE WRITTEN. 

BY GILBERT BURNS. 

When my father fewed his little property near AU- 
oway Kirk, the wall of the churchyard had gone to 
ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pasture in it. My 
father with two or three neighbors joined in an appli- 
cation to the Town Council of Ayr, who were su- 
periors of the adjoining land, for liberty to rebuild it, 
and raised by subscription a sum for enclosing this 
ancient cemetery with a wall ; hence he came to con- 
sider it as his burial place, and we learned that rev- 
erence for it that people generally have for the burial 
place of their ancestors. My brother was living at 
Ellisland when Captain Grose, on his peregrinations 
through Scotland, stayed some time at Carse House, 
in the neighborhood, with Captain Robert Riddell of 
Glenriddle, a particular friend of my brother's. The 
antiquarian and the poet were ' unco pack and thick 
thegither'. Robert requested of Captain Grose, when 
he should come to Ayrshire, that he would make a 



34 TAM 0' SHANTER. 

drawing of Alloway Kirk, as it was the burial place 
of liis father, and where he himself had a sort of 
claim to lay down his bones when they should be no 
longer serviceable to him, and added by way of en- 
couragement, that it was the scene of many a good 
story of witches and apparitions — of which he knew 
the Captain was very fond. The Captain agreed to 
the request, provided the poet would furnish a witch 
story to be printed along with it. " Tarn o' Shanter " 
was produced on this occasion and was first publish- 
ed in " Grose's Antiquities of Scotland." 



THE REAL TAM O' SHANTER, 
AND SOUTER JOHNNY. 

BY DR. ROBERT CHAMBERS, 

The country people in Ayrshire, contrary to their 
wont, unmythicize the narrations of Burns, and point 
both to a real Tarn and a Souter Johnny and to a 
natural occurrence as the basis of the fiction. Their 
story is as follows : 

The hero was an honest farmer named Douglas 
Graham, who lived at Shanter, between Turnberry 
and Colzean. His wife, Helen M' Taggart, was much 
addicted to superstitious beliefs. Graham, dealing in 
malt, went to Ayr every market day, whither he was 
frequently accompanied by a shoe-making neighbor, 
John Davidson, who dealt a little in leather. The 
two would often linger to a late hour in the taverns 
at the market town. One night when riding home more 
than usually late, by himself, in a storm of wind and 
rain, Graham in passing over Brown Carrick Hill, 
near the bridge of Doon, lost his bonnet which con- 
tained the money he had drawn that day at the mar- 



36 TAM O' SHANTER. 

ket. To avoid the scolding of his wife, he imposed 
upon her credulity with a story of witches seen at 
AUoway Kirk, but did not the less return to Carrick 
Hill to seek for his money, which he had the satisfac- 
tion to find with his bonnet in a plantation near the 
road. It is supposed that Burns when in his youth 
living among the Carrick farmers at Kirkoswald, 
became acquainted with Graham and Davidson, 
studied their grotesque habits, and heard of their 
various adventures, including that of Alloway Kirk, 
though perhaps without learning that it was the im- 
posture of a husband upon a too-credulous wife. 
Douglas Graham and John Davidson, the supposed 
originals of Tam o' Shanter and Souter Johnny, have 
long reposed in the churchyard of Kirkoswald, where 
the former has a handsome monument bearing a 
pious inscription. 



TAM O' SHANTER. 

BY J. M. MURDOCK. 

One of Burns' innumerable gifts was the painting 
of spooks like human beings. We do not mean the 
actual process of painting, as that task is too hercu- 
lean even for a great poet or the editor of a spookish 
organ called Borderland. What we mean to imply 
is that Bums, when dealing with devils, ghosts, 
fairies, brownies, witches, etc., cajoles his readers 
into the belief that the mythical habitues of AUoway 
Kirk were flesh and blood like ourselves, and it is here 
where the modus operandi of Burns appeals with irre- 
sistible force to his countrymen. The poem of Tam 
o' Shanter is of course not founded upon fact, yet the 
manner in which the bard deals with the memorable 
ride is so enchanting, and the players in the drama 
are so life like, that millions flock to the route — or, 
more accurately speaking, a portion of the route — 
traversed by Tam, if not to look for witches and war- 
locks, at least to explore the region and to chuckle 
over the pandemonium in the kirk, its effect upon the 



38 TAM O' SHANTER. 

hero of the occasion and his hair-breadth escape at 
the old bridge of Doon. 

It is recorded that the poet looked upon the tale as 
his magnum opus, but with all deference to his fancy, 
it does not deserve that place. The "Epistle to 
Davie," the "Cotter's Saturday Night," "Is there 
for Honest Poverty," and a few other pieces contain 
deeper thoughts and sterner truths, while the poetic 
art is as high if not higher ; but there will always be 
difference of opinion as to Burns' masterpiece. The 
great attraction of Tarn o' Shanter is its unbounding 
humor, its unflagging interest, and its morale. To-day 
we have literary people in abundance — the one regret 
is that they are not fewer — whose fame, or notoriety, 
ends at the grave. Every person who has mastered 
the rudiments of English composition is in a hurry to 
become famous, and the inevitable result is that few 
reach the summit of their ambition. An interreg- 
num in connection with this flood of puerihties and 
inane chatter would be hailed by thoughtful men with 
tokens of acclamation. Most authors are remem- 
bered by one or a few pieces, but this is not the case 
with Burns. Had Burns written only Tam o' Shanter, 
he might not have been known beyond the confines of 
Ayrshire. The piece displays an exceedingly humor- 



TAM O' SHANTER. 39 

ous and imaginative mind. It has few appeals to the 
heart. And, as Bums's place in literature is due to 
his touching the hearts of his countrymen, our 
opinion will, we feel assured, find favor with those 
who have zealously studied the works of our national 
poet. 

Versification in the Scottish dialect is one of the 
glories of the nation which reared Wallace and Bruce, 
Knox and Chalmers, Scott and Carlyle ; and, tower- 
ing above them all, Robert Burns. Poetrj^ has always 
been a vigorous plant in Scotland; every shire has 
its poet or poets, and this possession has done much 
to knit Scotsmen together. It is not our intention to 
pen a eulogy of the poetry of Caledonia. Most 
Scotsmen are agreed as to the incomparable charm of 
the native Doric. There is one sign of the times from 
which Scotsmen should pray to be delivered : it is the 
delusion that the utilization of the mother tongue, 
either in speaking or writing, betokens vulgarism. 
The craving for emulating England will, we fear, un- 
less Scotsmen themselves come to the rescue, gradual- 
ly wipe the Doric out of existence. Our drawing 
rooms, our concert halls, our teachers' and guides' 
institutions breathe an atmosphere distinctly English. 
Our children when at school write and read in English, 



40 TAM O' SHANTER. 

and when at home or on the playground, use the 
Doric. This is gratifying, but it is not enough, and all 
school boards and parents would do well to encourage 
proficiency in home literature. We have made these 
observations because Tarn o'Shanter is excellently 
adapted for recitation in schools and other places. 
According to Plato, the Greek Rhapsodist could 
scarce recite Homer without falling into convulsions ; 
a little girl reads the story of Red Riding Hood with 
fear and trembling, although she knows it is false ; 
and young and old read the account of Tam o' Shant- 
er's ride ( compared with which John G-ilpin's was a 
mere pleasure trot) with joy and pity ; moreover, they 
even cross the Atlantic ocean to scratch their initials 
on the bridge over which the Kirkoswald farmer rode, 
because the strength of Burns's imagination triumphs 
over their plenitude of reason. The poetry of illu- 
sion is often the poetry of immortality. Many of the 
finest thoughts of master minds which have been 
given to the world have been sandwiched between 
masses of fiction. 

It requires a good deal of application and the pos- 
session of histrionic gifts to be able to do justice to 
Tam o' Shanter. Very few amateur reciters can show 
the merits of Shakspeare's plays. When the reciter 



TAM O' SHANTER. 41 

of Tarn o' Shanter requires to be prorapted from the 
front benches ; when he goes through the piece with- 
out modulating his voice ; when he stands immovable 
like a pyramid of Egypt, the audience is enraged that 
such exquisite material should be in the hands of such 
a performer. 

The hero of the legend was Douglas Graham, of 
Shanter farm, near Kirkoswald. Numerous attempts 
have been made, and are still making, to dispute the 
authenticity of the statement; but not a particle of 
proof has been adduced to show that the current 
record is unreliable. Kirkoswald is an uninviting 
village situate a few miles from the town of Maybole, 
the ancient capital of Carrick. It was while residing 
in this portion of Ayrshire that Burns met with those 
characters which he subsequently sketched. We have 
stood by the graves of Tarn and the souter ( and the 
churchyard is one of the quaintest in the Burns 
country) ; we have examined the Bibles of the souter 
and the records kept by Hugh Roger, Burns's school- 
master; we have explored other places and things of 
interest in the locality, and all this has been done de- 
spite the cynical and shallow criticism of those whose 
bigotry destroys their title to be considered judges in 
a matter of the kind ; but we do not mean to denounce 



42 TAM O' SHANTER. 

them, we only pity their narrowness of view. We 
have yet amongst us individuals who scout the idea 
of entering the Tam o' Shanter Inn in the High 
street of Ayr, or going to worship at the shrines of 
Douglas Graham and John Davidson. The poet's ac- 
quaintance with the Kirkoswald worthies has provided 
more pleasure to Scotsmen than many detractors are 
aware of. It is not the reading of the tale that has 
to be considered. The magical influence of associa- 
tion causes thousands to leave their homes to compre- 
hend the situation. And they do not return dis- 
appointed. Alio way Kirk and the old bridge of Doon 
may rank beside Bannockburn and Drumclog, and 
although the former have become famous through im- 
agination, the latter, although associated with real- 
ities, are the less frequented. This maybe a reflection 
on the sound judgment of Scotsmen, but it is none 
the less true. 

The tale, as we have indicated, is a Ben Nevis of 
Scottish humor on which all eyes are riveted. From 
the moment Tam mounts his mare at the High street 
of Ayr, till the interesting spot above the waters of 
the sparkling Doon is reached, he electrifies the mind 
of the reader. No devil-m.a-care, fashionless, gin- 
loving farmer ever rode quicker into immortality. 



TAM O' SHANTER. 43 

The making of reputations is slow and dreary work, 
and a reputation that is to last until the final trumpet 
sound is heard, requires years of plodding ; years of 
bitter regrets; years of joyful experiences. Tarn 
o' Shanter's reputation was bought at a dear price, but 
the price was not too exacting for the proud position 
which he occupies to-day. Had Tam been the favor- 
ite in the Ayrshire handicap at the Ayr meeting, he 
could not have ridden faster; still, Maggie was not the 
mare to put many ' ' ponies " on. Despite the ticklish 
situations in which Tam is placed, we are compelled 
to laugh even when we feel inclined to become 
emotional. We are brought back to the hours of 
childhood, to the evenings when we sat at the hearth 
and heard some superstitious old woman recount the 
cantrips of the witches and other phantoms of 
romance. Nothing attracts an imaginative person so 
much as a discourse on the vagaries of the breezy- 
mannered creatures who dance in the pale moonlight. 
Tam o' Shanter in the prose of a Macaulay, or a 
DeQuincey, or a Christopher North, or a Louis 
Stevenson, would no doubt be an interesting record ; 
but we question if it would live. In the hands of such 
a person as Burns, it is painted with the brush of a 
literary Raphael ; its fine blending of colors dazzles 



44 TAM O' SHANTER. 

the eye and appeals to the understanding, and the 
older it gets the more attractive does it become. In 
sketching what we vulgarly term the Deil, Burns dis- 
plays a rollicking abandon; he talks as if he were 
entertaining him to haggis at his own fireside. This 
style would have raised the dander of our covenant- 
ing ancestors in the wilds of Ayrshire and Galloway, 
who could not tolerate indecorum and clowning in 
religious concerns. At the time in which the poet 
lived, the hypocritical parson and the indecorous 
communion were strongly in evidence. And what 
could be more appropriate at that stage than the 
feigned cultivation of familiarity with such a one as 
the Prince of Darkness, in order to show to the rant- 
ing theologian that the enemy of mankind was not 
so black as he was painted. His Deil is the old ortho- 
dox one who has done his duty for thousands of years. 
His witches, too, are wonderful creations — ugly, 
detestable, with deviltry stamped on every feature of 
their human forms. We shall not linger over this 
subject ; it is apt to make us think one of the grotesque 
monsters is seated beneath our writing desk and ready 
for another sprint along the banks of bonnie Doon. 
Had the rider failed to reach the keystone of the 
bridge, the tale would have been spoiled, inasmuch as 



TAM O' SHANTER. 45 

the hissing, revengeful, hateful witches would have 
captured a prize, and their success would have brought 
witchery as a profession into contempt. Burns, in 
writing the tale, went as far as he could with safety. 
He knew what would enthuse his patrons and he 
succeeded. If Tarn's cantrips were not followed with 
thousands of eyes, millions have pictured the sight 
in their imagination ; they have felt that life has been 
rendered more pleasant by the setting in circulation 
of such a piece of legendary history ; they have in- 
scribed the story on the tablets of their memories as a 
possession that shall not fade away. The rich and 
the poor, the gentle and the simple have bowed before 
the artist's throne, grateful for the riches bestowed 
upon them by one whose sublime thoughts have 
called forth the admiration of the civilized globe. To 
such a one we must pay homage. 



CAPTAIN GROSE. 

FROM "KAY'S EDINBURGH PORTRAITS." 

Captain Grose was born in the year 1731, and was 
the son of Mr. Francis Grose of Richmond, jeweler, 
who fitted up the coronation crown of George the Sec- 
ond, and died in 1769. By his father he was left an 
independent fortune. In early life he entered the 
Surrey militia, of which he became Adjutant and 
Paymaster; but so careless was he, that he kept no 
vouchers either of his receipts or expenditures. He 
used himself to say he had only two books of ac- 
counts, viz., the right and left hand pockets. The 
result may be easily anticipated, and his fortune 
suffered severely for his folly. His losses on this oc- 
casion roused his latent talents ; with a good classical 
education, a fine taste for drawing, encouraged by 
his friends, and impelled by his situation, he com- 
menced the "Antiquities of England and Wales," the 
first number of which was published in 1773, and the 
fourth volume completed in 1776. In 1777 he resumed 
his pencil, and added two more volumes to his ' ' English 



TAM O' SHANTER. 47 

Views," in which he concluded the islands of Guern- 
sey and Jersey, in 237 views, with maps of the coun- 
ties, besides a general one. The work was reprinted 
in eight volmnes in 1787. 

The success of this work induced Grose to illustrate 
in a similar manner, " The Antiquities of Scotland." 
This publication, in numbers of four plates each, com- 
menced in the beginning of 1789, and finished in 1791, 
forming two volumes, with 190 views, and letterpress. 
Before the plates of the latter numbers were out of 
the engraver's hands, the author ' ' turned his eyes to 
Ireland, who seemed to invite him to her hospitable 
shore, to save from impending oblivion her mouldering 
monuments, and to unite her, as she should ever be, 
in closest association with the British Isles. The Cap- 
tain arrived in Dublin in May, 1791, with the fairest 
prospect of completing the noblest literary design at- 
tempted in this country." Such are the words of Dr. 
Ledwich, to whom Grose had applied for assistance, 
and by whom the work was completed, in two vol- 
umes, in 1795. But while in Dublin, at the house of 
Mr. Hone, Grose was suddenly seized with an apo- 
plectic fit, and died in the fifty-second year of his age, 
upon the 12th of May, 1791. The following epitaph 



48 TAM O' SHANTER. 

proposed for him, was inserted in the St. James's 
Chronicle, May 26th: 

Here lies Francis Grose. 

On Thursday, May 12th, 1791, 

Death put an end to 

His views and prospects. 

Upon occasion of his marriage, Grose took up his 
residence in Canterbury, where he remained several 
years, during which period his wit and vivacity made 
him many friends. No one possessed more than him- 
self the faculty of setting the table " in a roar," but 
it was never at the expense of virtue or good man- 
ners. He left several sons and daughters ; one of the 
latter married Anketil Singleton, Esq., Lieut. -Gover- 
nor of Sandguard Fort. His son, Daniel Grose, F.A. 
S., Captain of the Eoyal Regiment of Artillery, was, 
after several campaigns in America, appointed Depu- 
ty-Governor of the new settlement at Botany Bay, 
in 1790. 

Besides the works above noticed, he published a 
Treatise on Ancient Armor and Weapons : illustrated 
by plates taken from the original armor in the Tower 
of London, and other arsenals, museums, and cabinets." 
London, 1785. Quarto. A supplement was added in 
1789. ' 'A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. " 



TAM O' SHANTER. 49 

London, 1785. Octavo. "A guide to Health, Wealth, 
Honor, and Riches." London, 1785. Octavo. This 
is a most amusing collection of advertisements, 
principally illustrative of the extreme gullability of 
the citizens of London. A very humorous intro- 
duction is prefixed. "Military Antiquities, respecting 
a history of the English Army, from the Conquest 
to the present time." Two volumes. London, 1786-88. 
Quarto. With numerous plates. This work was 
published in numbers. "The History of Dover 
Castle. By the Rev. William Darrell, Chaplain to 
Queen Elizabeth." 1781. In Quarto, the same as the 
large and small editions of the antiquities of England 
and Wales;" with ten views engraved from drawings 
by Captain Grose. " A Provincial Glossary; with a 
Collection of Local Proverbs and Popular Supersti- 
tions." London, 1788. Octavo. "Rules for Draw- 
ing Caricatures; the subject illustrated with four 
copper plates; with an essay on comic painting." 
London, 1788. Octavo. A second edition appeared 
in 1791, Octavo, illustrated with twenty-one copper 
plates, seventeen of which were etched by Captain 
Grose. After his demise was published "The Olio;" 
being a collection of Essays, Dialogues, Letters, 
Biographical Sketches, etc. By the late Francis 



50 TAM O' SHANTER. 

Grose, Esq., F. R. S. and A. S. ; with a portrait of the 
author. London, 1796. Octavo. 

There are dessertations by him in the " Archseolo- 
gia, " the one ' 'On an Ancient Fortification at Christ - 
church, Hants," and the other " On Ancient^Spurs." 



CAPTAIN GROSE. 

FROM CUNNINGHAM'S "LIFE AND LAND OF BURNS." 

" It's tauld he was a sodger bred, 
And ane wad rather fa'n than fled, 
But now he's quat the spurtle blade, 

And dog-skin wallet, 
And ta'en the — Antiquarian trade 

I think they call it. 

Burns met Francis Grose at the Friar's Carse, on 
the banks of the Nith, the residence of a brother anti- 
quarian, Mr. Riddle, and was pleased with his man- 
ners and his wit, and listened alike to his Southland 
jokes and his old-world lore. It is said nevertheless, 
that though they were brothers in humor and in the 
social cup, the haughty Englishman disliked the 
Scot's sallies about the rotundity of his person, and 
was mortified rather than pleased when he found him- 
self described as a "fine, fat fudgy wight," small of 
stature though bright in genius. It is likely that the 
poet was not ignorant of this; and hence his jocular 
epigram, in which he represents Satan as eager for 
the soul of the antiquary, but dreading to encounter 
the immense load with which he heard his sick bed 



52 TAM O' SHANTER. 

creaking and groaning. Indeed, he seldom omitted 

an opportunity of having a fling at him ; even in the 

envelope which enclosed the inimitable Tam o' Shan- 

ter to Cardonnel, another of the northern antiquaries, 

he makes sarcastic inquiries. 

*' Ken ye ought o' Captain Grose? 
If he's amang his friends or foes? 
Is he south or is he north? 
Or drowned in the Eiver Forth? 
Is he slain by Highland bodies? 
And eaten like a wether haggis?" 

The poet soon, indeed, discovered that Grose had but 
little in common with himself ; he was a dry-as-dust 
antiquary, and thought the bard received immortal 
honor in admitting his tale of Tam o' Shanter as an 
illustration to the ruins of AUoway Kirk. On the 
other hand, Bums imagiued that he helped Grose 
largely with his task when he advertised his profes- 
sional visit to the ruined castles and abbeys in Scot- 
land ; and no doubt his humorous epistle to his coun- 
trymen prepared the way both for Grose and his work 
on the Scottish antiquities. In the commencement 
of this poem, he alarms the National pride : 

" Hear, land o' cakes, and brither Scots, 
Frae Maiden Kirk to Johnny Groat's : 
If there's a hole in a' your coats, 

I rede you tent it. 
A chield's amang ye takin' notes, 

An' faith he'll prent it. 



TAM O'SHANTBR. 53 

In the second and third verses he introduces the 
Captain to his countrymen, and claims their re- 
gard to his personal appearance as well as to his 
learned qualities: 

" If in your bounds ye chance to light 
Upon a fine, fat fodgel wight, 
O* stature short, but genius bright, 

That's he, mark weel — 
And wow ! he has an unco slight 

O cauk and keel. 

By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin, 

Or kirk deserted by its riggin ; 

It's ten to ane ye'll find him snug in 

Some eldrich part, 
Wi' deils, they say — Lord save's ! — coUeaguin, 

At some black art." 

He then calls on those who deal in speUs and glam- 
or, and on the spirits which haunt ruined haUs, to 
tremble and quake at the coming of one who can let 
daylight in upon their dark doings, and expose and 
expel them. His account of the antiquarian collec- 
tion of his friend is in a happy style. Sir Walter 
Scott, as he conducted a friend of ours through his 
splendid armory leaned kindly on his shoulder and re- 
peated with great unction the following verse : 

' ' He has a f outh o' auld nick-nackets : 
Rusty aim caps and jinglin' jackets, 
Wad baud the Lothians three in tackets, 

A towmont guid ; 
And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets 

Before the flood." 



54 TAM O' SHANTEK. 

Grose was a man of perseverence and research; his 
work on the military antiquities of Britain will long 
be a monument to the honor of single-handed enter- 
prise. A work so extensive and minute, so curious 
and instructive, so worthy of the nation and its 
history, was to have been looked for from the crown 
or the government, rather than a half -pay captaia 
and an antiquary, rich in nick-nackets, rather than in 
gold. He was born at Richmond, in the year 1731, 
where his father was a jeweler ; he was for some time 
in the Herald's College; served a few years in the 
nnlitia and the cavalry ; and, quittiag knapsack and 
sword, distiQguished himself as an antiquary ; and died 
suddenly at a dinner-table in Dublin ia the year 1791. 



CAPTAIN GROSE, THE ANTI- 
QUARY. 

FROM ECHO. 

On May 12, 1791, died the once-famous Francis 
Grose, antiquary, artist, and humorist — a man whose 
name is unknown, but who lives in the poetry of his 
friend Burns, and in the antiquarian literature of 
these islands. He was born in 1731, at Greenford, 
Middlesex, and was the son of Francis Grose, a native 
of Berne, who came to England in the eighteenth 
century, and settled at Richmond, Surrey. He re- 
ceived a classical education, and he studied art in 
Shipley's drawing-school. As early as 1766 he be- 
came a member of the Incorporated Society of British 
Artists, and in 1768 he exhibited a drawing, "High 
Life Below Stairs." In the next year he exhibited 
architectural drawings in the Royal Academy. 

About this time Grose held the office of Richmond 
Herald, and subsequently he was Adjutant and Pay- 
master of the Hampshire Militia. His system of 
keeping the regimental accounts was an original one — 



56 TAM O' SHANTEB. 

he put all receipts into one pocket and made all his 
payments from another — and this soon landed him in 
confusion and difficulty. He adopted the same sys- 
tem when, in 1778, he was made Adjutant and Cap- 
tain of the First Surrey or the Tangier Regiment. 
In his own money matters he was equally careless, 
and the fortune which his father left him soon 
vanished. 

In 1773 appeared the first volume of the work on 
which his chief fame rests — "The Antiquities of Eng- 
land and Wales." This was completed in four vol- 
umes, in 1787, and still remains a standard work. 
The drawings were made by himself, but he had 
assistance in writing the descriptions. This work 
completed, he visited Scotland, where at Friar's Carse 
he made the acquaintance of Robert Burns, and the 
two soon became cronies. Grose was immensely cor- 
pulent, as his portrait shows, "full of good-humor 
and good-nature and an inimitable boon companion;" 
and in Bums he found a kindred spirit, who, how- 
ever, did not scruple to satirize his friend. To Grose 
the poet addressed the well-known poem which 
begins 

"Hear, land o' cakes and brither Scots." 



TAM O' SHANTER. 57 

The second verse describes the captain's personal 
appearance and his skill with the pencil. 

Bums gave serious offence to the worthy antiquary 
by another poem, beginning 

"Ken ye ought of Captain Grose?" 

In the introduction to the "Antiquities of Scotland" 
Grose says that Bums made out what was most wor- 
thy of notice in Ayrshire, and also wrote specially for 
him, in connection with Alio way Kirk, " Tam o' Shan- 
ter," one of the most popular of the poet's works. 
(See Burns's general correspondence, letter 227). 

The "Antiquities of Scotland" were published in 
1789-'91. Then the author visited the sister isle; 
but alas! his work here was soon cut short. He 
had not written and printed more than seven pages of 
his "Antiquities of Ireland," when he died of apo- 
plexy in Dublin. His remains lie in Drumcondra 
Church. 



AULD KIRK ALLOWAY. 

BY DR. BENJAMIN F. LEGGETT. 

Oh, Alloway! Oh, Alloway! 
Thy roofless walls are fair to day ! 
Above thee azure skies are spread. 
Around thee sleep the silent dead ; 
By lichened stone and leaning slate, 
My eager footsteps pause and wait. 
While soft June airs around thee play, 
Auld haunted Kirk o' Alloway ! 

A dusty pilgrim at thy shrine. 
Oh, Alloway ! what rest is mine ! 
Within the grateful shade I lie. 
Beneath the broad leaf-fretted sky. 
Safe sheltered from the noonday gleam, 
What airy shadows haunt my dream ; 
What gray wraiths out of mist-land stray. 
And throng thee round, Auld Alloway ! 



TAM O' SHANTER. 59 



The daisied turf is sweet to-day, 
Around thy walls, Oh, Alio way ! 
The minstrel's song hath lent its charm. 
And time can never do thee harm ; 
Though years go by, and, safe below, 
Tarn sleeps beneath the hawthorn's snow, 
Yet still thy world-wide fame will stay, 
Witch-haunted Kirk o' Alloway ! 



A BRIEF REVIEW. 

BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 

Bums had become fully reconciled to Nithsdale, 
and was on the most intimate terms with the muse 
when he produced Tam o' Shanter, the crowning glory* 
of all his poems. For this marvelous tale we are in- 
debted to something like accident. Francis Grose, 
the antiquary, happened to visit Friar's Carse, and 
as he loved wine and wit, the total want of imagina- 
tion was no hindrance to his friendly intercourse with 
the poet. "Alloway's auld haunted Kirk," was men- 
tioned, and Grose said he would include it in his illus- 
trations of the antiquities of Scotland, if the bard of 
Doon would write a poem to accompany it. Bums 
consented, and before he left the table the various 
traditions, which belonged to the ruin, were passing 
through his mind. One of these was of a farmer, 
who, on a night wild with wind and rain on passing 
the old Kirk was startled by a light glimmering inside 
the walls. On drawing near he saw a caldron hung 



TAM O' SHANTER. 6l 

over a fire, in which the heads and limbs of children 
were swinuning. There were neither witch nor friend 
to guard it, so he unhooked the caldron, and turned 
out the contents and carried it home as a trophy. A 
second tradition was of a man of Kyle, who, having 
been on a market night detained late in Ayr, on 
crossing the old bridge of Doon, on his way home, 
saw a light streaming through the Gothic window of 
Alloway Kirk, and on riding near, beheld a batch of 
the district witches dancing merrily round their mas- 
ter, the devil, who kept them " louping an' flinging" 
to the sound of a pagpipe. He knew several of the 
old crones, and smiled at their gambols, for they were 
dancing in their smocks ; but one of them, who hap- 
pened to be young and rosy, had on a shorter smock 
than those of her companions by two spans at least, 
which so moved the farmer, that he exclaimed ' ' Weel 
luppen, Maggie wi' the short sark!" Satan stopped 
his music, the light was extinguished, and out rushed 
the hags after the farmer, who made at the gallop for 
the bridge of Doon, knowing that they could not cross 
a stream. He escaped; but Maggie, who was fore- 
most, seized the horse's tail at the middle of the 
bridge, and pulled it off, in her efforts to stay him. 
The poem was the work of a single day. Burns 



62 TAM O' SHANTER. 

walked out to his favorite musing path, which runs 
towards the old tower of the Isle, along Nithside, and 
was observed to walk hastily and mutter as he went. 
His wife knew by these signs that he was engaged in 
composition, and watched him from the window ; at 
last, wearying and moreover wondering at the un- 
usual length of his meditations, she took her children 
with her and went to meet him ; but as he seemed not 
to notice her she stepped aside among the broom to 
allow him to pass, which he did with a flushed brow, 
and dropping eyes, reciting these lines aloud : 

' ' Now Tam, O Tam ! had thae been queans, 
A' plump and strapping in their teens ! 
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, 
Been snaw- white seventeen hundred linnen ! 
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, . 
That ance were plush, o' gude blue hair, 
I wad ha gi'en them off my hurdles. 
For ae blink o' the bonnie bur dies ! " 

He embellished this wild tradition from fact as well 
as from fancy. Along the road which Tam came on 
that eventful night, his memory supplied circum- 
stances, which prepared him for the strange sight at 
the Kirk of Alio way. A poor chapman had perished 
some winters before in the snow ; a murdered child 
had been found by some early hunters; a tippling 
farmer had fallen from his horse at the expense of 
his neck, beside a ' ' meikle stane " ; and a melancholy 



TAM O' SHANTEB. 63 

old woman had hanged herself at the bush aboon the 
well, as the poem relates. All these matters the poet 
pressed into the service of the muse, and used them 
with a skill which adorns rather than oppresses the 
legend. A pert lawyer from Dumfries objected to the 
language as obscure. "Obscure, sir!" said Burns; 
' ' you know not the language of that great master of 
your own art — the devil. If you had a witch for your 
client you would not be able to manage her defence." 



THE GALLOWAY CUTTY-SARK. 

BY JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. 

Grose and Burns had too much in common not to 
become great friends. The poet's accurate knowledge 
of Scottish phraseology and customs was of much use 
to the researches of the humorous antiquarian ; and, 
above all, it is to their acquaintance that we owe 
"Tam o' Shanter." Burns told the story as he had 
heard it in Ayrshire, in a letter to the Captain, and 
was easUy persuaded to versify it. The poem is said 
to have been the work of one day ; and Mrs. Burns well 
remembered the circumstances. 

To the last. Burns was of opinion that ' ' Tam o' 
Shanter" was the best of his productions; and 
although it does not often happen that poet and 
public come to the same conclusion on such points, 
I believe the decision in question has been all but 
unanimously approved of. 

The admirable execution of the piece, so far as it 
goes, leaves nothing to wish for; the only criticism 
has been, that the catastrophe appears unworthy of 



TAM O'SHANTER. 65 

the preparation. Burns might have avoided this error 
— if error it be — had he followed not the Ayrshire but 
the Galloway edition of the legend. According to that 
tradition, the Cutty-Sark, who attracted the special 
notice of the bold intruder of the Satanic ceremonial, 
was no other than the pretty wife of a farmer, residing 
in the same village with himself, and of whose unholy 
propensities no suspicion had ever been whispered. 
The Galloway Tam, being thoroughly sobered by 
terror, crept to his bed, the moment he reached home 
after his escape, and said nothing of what had hap- 
pened to any of his family. He was awakened in the 
morning with the astounding intelligence that his 
horse had been found dead in the stable, with a 
woman's hand, clotted with blood, adhering to the 
tail. Presently it was reported that Cutty-Sark had 
burned her hand grievously over night, and was ill 
in bed, but obstinately refused to let her hand be 
examined by the village leech. Thereupon Tam, dis- 
entangling the bloody hand from the hair of his 
defunct favorite's tail, proceeded to the residence of 
the fair witch, and forcibly pulling her stump to veiw, 
showed his trophy, and narrated the whole circum- 
stances of the adventure. The poor victim of the 
black art was constrained to confess her guilty prac- 



66 TAM O'SHANTER. 

tices in presence of the priest and the laird, and was 
forthwith burnt alive under their joint auspices, 
within water-mark, on the Solway Firth. 

Such, Mr. Cunningham informs me, is the version of 
this story, current in Galloway and Dumfriesshire; 
but it may be doubted whether even if Burns was 
acquainted with it, he did not choose wisely in adher- 
ing to the Ayrshire legend, as he had heard it in his 
youth. It is seldom that tales of popular superstition 
are effective in proportion to their completeness of 
solution and catastrophe. On the contrary, they, 
like the creed to which they belong, suffer little in a 
picturesque point of view by exhibiting a maimed and 
fragmentary character, that in nowise satisfies strict 
taste, either critical or moral. Dreams based in dark- 
ness may fitly terminate in a blank ; the cloud opens, 
and the cloud closes. The absence of definite scope 
and purpose appears to be of the essence of the myth- 
ological grotesque. Burns lays the scene of this 
remarkable performance almost on the spot where he 
w£is born; and all the terrific circumstances by 
which he has marked the progress of Tam's midnight 
journey, are drawn from local tradition : 

" By this time he was cross the ford 
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd. 
And past the birks and meikle stane, 



TAM O' SHANTER. 67 

Whare drunken Chairlie brak's neck-bane, 
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn; 
And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
Whare Mungo's mither hanged hersel'." 

None of these tragic memoranda were derived from 
imagination. Nor was " Tam o' Shanter " himself an 
imaginary character. Shanter is a farm close to 
Kirkoswald, that smuggling village in which Burns, 
when sixteen years old, studied mensuration, and 
*' first became acquainted with scenes of swaggering 
riot." The then occupier of Shanter, by name Douglas 
Graham, was, by all accounts, equally what the Tam 
of the poet appears — a jolly, careless rustic, who took 
much more interest in the contraband traffic of the 
coast, than the rotation of crops. Burns knew the 
man well; and to his dying day Graham, nothing 
loath, passed among his rural compeers by the name 
of Tam o' Shanter. 



WHY ''TAM" WAS WRITTEN. 

BY PROFESSOR JOHN STUART BLACKIE. 

In the year 1790 the distinguished English anti- 
quary, Captain Francis Grose, paid a visit to Scotland, 
and was entertained with his usual hospitality by 
Captain RiddeU. Here, of course, he was introduced 
to the farmer of Elhsland ; and in their convivial quali- 
ties and good-humor, the poet and the antiquarian 
straightway recognized one another as brothers. In 
the course of their confabulations Burns took the 
opportunity of suggesting to the archaeologist that 
there was a fine old ruined church at Alloway, on the 
banks of the Doon, a region to which the poet owed 
his birth, and where his father had found a burial 
ground; and which was moreover, the traditional 
scene of strange witch and worlock stories, than which 
few things could be more interesting to a genial 
antiquary like Grose. The Captain at once took the 
hint, and promised to give special prominence to 
Alloway Kirk in his book, if Bums would furnish a 
witch story to give a rich seasoning to the pudding. 



TAM O' SHANTER. 69 

The poet's love of frolic, and his deep-rooted patriot- 
ism, at once jumped at the proposal. A bargain was 
made, and the muse of Coila, in one of her most fervid 
moments, visited the bard one forenoon as he was 
pacing up and down his favorite walk on the banks 
of the Nith, and before evening the great master- 
piece of Scottish character, Scottish humor, Scottish 
witch -lore, and Scottish imagination, "Tam o' 
Shanter, " was produced at full length, glowing from 
the anvil. Besides the glory of having accidently 
been the cause of the production of this excellent 
witch-idyl, the Middlesex antiquary had the good 
fortune to elicit from the poet a personal description 
of himself, which will do more to make him immortal 
than all his antiquarian works put together. 



THE MATCHLESS TALE. 

BY PRINCIPAL SHAIRP. 

But what had Burns been doing for the last year in 
poetic production? In this respect the whole interval 
between the composition of the lines "To Mary in 
Heaven," in October, 1789, and the autumn of the 
succeeding year, is almost a blank. Three election- 
eering ballads, besides a few trivial pieces, make up 
the whole. There is not a line written by him during 
this year which, if it were deleted from his works, 
would any way impair his poetic fame. But this long 
barrenness was atoned for by a burst of inspiration 
which came on him in the fall of 1790, and struck off 
at one heat the matchless tale of "Tam o'Shanter." 
It was to the meeting already noticed of Burns with 
Captain Grose, the antiquary, at Friar's Carse, that 
we owe this wonderful poem. The poet and the an- 
tiquary suited each other exactly, and they soon 
became 

" Unco pack and thick thegither." 

Burns asked his friend, when he reached Ayrshire, 
to make a drawing of Alloway Kirk, and include it in 



TAM O' SHANTER. 7l 

his sketches, for it was dear to him because it was the 
resting-place of his father, and there he himself might 
some day lay his bones. To induce Grose to do this, 
Bums told him that Alloway Kirk was the scene of 
many witch stories and weird sights. The antiquary 
replied, " Write you a poem on the scene, and I'll put 
in the verses with an engraving of the ruin." Burns 
having found a fitting day and hour, when "his 
barmy noddle was working prime," walked out to his 
favorite path down the western bank of the river. 

The poem was the work of one day, of which Mrs. 
Burns retained a vivid recollection. Her husband had 
spent most of the day by the river side, and in the 
afternoon she joined him with her two children. He 
was busily engaged "crooning to himsel'"; and Mrs. 
Burns, perceiving that her presence was an interrup- 
tion, loitered behind with her little ones among the 
broom. Her attention was presently attracted by the 
strange and wild gesticulations of the bard, who was 
now seen at some distance, agonized with an un- 
governable access of joy. He was reciting very loud, 
and with tears rolling down his cheeks, those anima- 
ted verses which he had just conceived : 

" Now Tam, O Tarn! had thae been queans, 
A' plump and strappin' in their teens." 



72 TAM O' SHANTER. 

*'Iwish ye had seen him," said his wife; "he was 
in such ecstasy that the tears were happing down his 
cheeks." These last words are given by Allan Cun- 
ningham, in addition to the above account, which 
Lockhart got from a manuscript journal of Cromek. 
The poet having committed the verses to writing on 
the top of his sod-dyke above the water, came into 
the house, and read them immediately in high triumph 
at the fireside. 

Thus in the case of two of Burns's best poems, we 
have an account of the bard as he appeared in his 
hour of inspiration, not to any literary friend bent on 
pictorial effect, but from the plain narrative of his 
simple and admiring wife. Burns speaks of " Tam o' 
Shanter " as his first attempt at a tale in verse— un- 
fortunately it was also his last. He himself regarded 
it as the masterpiece of all his poems, and posterity 
has not, I believe, reversed the judgment. 

In this, one of his happiest flights, Burns's imagina- 
tion bore him from the vale of Nith back to the banks 
of Doon, and to the weird tales he had there heard in 
childhood, told by the winter firesides. The characters 
of the poem have been identified ; that of Tam is taken 
from a farmer, Douglas Graham, who lived at the 
farm of Shanter, in the parish of Kirkoswald. He 



TAM O' SHANTER. 73 

had a scolding wife, called Helen McTaggart, and the 
tombstones of both are pointed out in Kirkoswald 
kirkyard. Souter Johnnie is more uncertain, but is 
supposed, with some probability, to have been John 
Davidson, a shoemaker, who lies buried in the same 
place. Yet, from Burns's poem we would gather that 
this latter lived in Ayr. But these things matter 
little. From his experience of the smuggling farmers 
of Kirkoswald, among whom "he first became ac- 
quainted with scenes of swaggering and riot," and his 
remembrance of the tales that haunted the spot where 
he passed his childhood, combined with his knowl- 
edge of the peasantry, their habits and superstitions, 
Burns's imagination wove the inimitable tale. 



^'TAM O'SHANTER" IN A 
DRESS SUIT. 

BY ROBERT FORD. 

We are living in an age of daring and adventurous 
women; viz., the divided skirt, the lady-doctor, the 
female politician, the she football player, and many 
more recent innovations which these will at once 
suggest, the very mildest of which would have caused 
our revered grannies, and grandfathers as well, to 
hold up their hands in pious horror. And not the 
least courageous, surely, of the modern dames with 
pluck and courage is Miss Isabella K. Gough. Whence 
this lady? — who was her father, who was her mother, 
who is her sister, who is her brother? — we have not 
the remotest idea. Besides, it is Miss Gough's action, 
and not herself, that interests us meantime. What 
has she done? Nothing base, nothing demanding 
police investigation, let me answer at once. The 
lady's intentions have been quite honorable and above 
suspicion. She has offended unwittingly, only, by 
attempting the impossible. She has tried to put ' ' Tam 



TAM O' SHANTER. 75 

o' Shanter " into a dress suit! To abandon metaphor, 
and speak in plain terms, she has attempted a trans- 
lation of Burns's immortal poem into modern English ; 
and who that knows the rugged native grandeur of 
the original will not guess the result ! Why, it is the 
funniest little book of the season ; Mark Twain has 
produced nothing so entertaining these last ten years. 
A friend sent me a copy with his New-Year's-Day 
greetings, and I have not been greeting, but laughing 
almost every hour since it arrived. Translations of 
Burns's poems and songs are not new to me, and I 
liave learned by experience how to take the fun out 
of them, and grow fat on it. They are deUghtfully 
amusing and stimulating at all times. The less success- 
ful as translations, the more entertaining as literature. 
Only a year ago Alexander Corbett, of Boston, Mass., 
TJ. S., sent us over his "Select Poems of Burns, Trans- 
lated into English," which was value for any measure 
of quinine and iron tonic. In Mr. Corbett' s well- 
intentioned work, instead of "Whistle o'er the lave 
o't," the reader was injoined to "Whistle the re- 
mainder." A wise counsel, if this had been the first 
poem in the book, and the translator had taken the 
advice to himself. But it was otherwise. He did not 
see the fun he was making, and gave us more such. 



76 TAM O' SHANTER. 



? ?» 



both fore and aft. The "blast o' Jan war' win , 

which stimulates the early part of ' ' There was a Lad,'* 

he modified into "A gleam of wintry sun," and good 

old ' ' John Anderson, My Jo, " was rouged and set out 

in this fashion : — 

' ' John Anderson, my jo, John, 

When we were newly wed, 

Your hair was like the raven, 

Your cheeks were round and red." 

Not Mr. Corbett, of Boston, but another — a French- 
man — a year or two ago made efforts in a similar way, 
and " Willie Brewed a Peck o' Maut," when retrans- 
lated literally into English, read as follows : — 

" Oh, Willie has brewed a peck of malt 

And Rob and Allan came to sample it. 
During all that night three hearts more joyous 

You would not have found in Christianity. 
We were not very drunk, we were not very drunk ; 

We had just a little drop in the eye ; 
The cock can sing, the day show itself, 

But we will taste the liquor of barley." 

Nobody may expect anything more grotesque than 
that outside of a Christmas pantomime, except perhaps 
in the writings of the one and only M'G-onnigall, or in 
Miss Isabella K. Gough's translation of "Tam o* 
Shanter." This is included in a beautifully got-up 
little book of sixty odd pages, issued by Messrs. David 
Bryce & Son, Glasgow, having eight clever illustra- 
tions by Mr. Thomas Faed, the celebrated Galloway 



TAM O' SHANTER. 77 

artist, and with a reduced facsimile of the poet's (I 
mean Burns's) original MS. of the poem reproduced 
on each alternate page — Scotch and English in juxta- 
position. It is a marvel. Let us quote the first 
opening lines : — 

*' When pedlar fellows cease to cry their wares. 
And thirsty neighbors meet to drown their cares, 
When drawing to a close is market day, 
And country folks begin to take the way ; 
While at the foaming cup we sit and quaff. 
Primed by the ale at every jest to laugh, 
We think not of the weary, long Scots miles. 
The marshes, waters, frequent gaps and stiles 
That lie between us and our distant homes. 
Where sullen, sulky, knowing why we roam. 
Sits our good dame, with brows like gath'ring storm, 
Nursing her rising wrath to keep it warm. 
This painful truth found honest Tam o' Shanter, 
As he from Ayr one market night did canter. 
(No other town has yet surpassed old Ayr 
For gallant, honest men and maidens fair)," 

Than these last two lines in contrast with — 

' ' Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses 
For honest men and bonnie lasses, 

nothing more eloquent and convincing could be ad- 
vanced — were it necessary — to demonstrate to any 
one, either the weakness of the Enghsh language in 
comparison with the Scotch, or the utter inadequacy 
of the former tongue as a medium through which to 
express the latter. " Tam o' Shanter " in a dress suit, 
forsooth ! Had Miss Gough been gifted with even a 



78 TAM O' SHANTER. 

very mild sense of humor she would have tumbled off 
in a fit of laughter at the penultimate line there and 
persevered no further. But thanks to the amiable 
lady's sublime dulness in respect to a joke she plods 
perseveringly to the bitter end, and we have the 
reward. Only one morsel more of her translation 
here, however, and take it slow, please — with water : 

"Now, Tam, O Tam! had these been damsels fair, 
Eosy and strapping, that were dancing there, 
Instead of flannels, grimy, greasy, black. 
Fine snow-white linen would have graced each back ! 
These, my knee-breeches, though my only pair. 
That once were velvet plush, of good blue hair, 
I would have gladly given them off my haunches 
Even for one glimpse of those seductive wenches. 
But withered beldams, ugly, old, and droll. 
True gallows hags, whose looks would wean a foal, 
Leaping and flinging, clinging to a stick, 
I wonder did not turn thy stomach sick." 

It may be that Miss Isabella K. Gough will not secure 
immortal fame as a translator of Burns into English. 
But when she produces anything again one-half as 
funny as " Tam o' Shanter " in a dress suit, it is my 
earnest cry and prayer that I shaU not miss seeing it. 



BURNS'S MASTERPIECE. 

BY GEORGE SAVAGE, OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND. 

The ability and versatility of Kobert Burns as a poet 
are strikingly shown in "Tarn o'Shanter," and even 
Shakspeare does not surpass him in power to present 
gay scenes and then the weird, the mysterious, and 
the supernatural. The author of so many joyous 
songs and of the "Cotter's Saturday Night " — so im- 
pressive in its religious tone and the glowing picture 
it gives of domestic life and fireside happiness — ap- 
pears in "Tam o' Shanter" in a new light. Mr. 
Lockhart's statement (doubtless true) that "the poem 
was the work of one day " seems almost incredible 
when we consider its length, scope, and merits. ' ' Tarn 
o' Shanter " will ever be among the living characters 
depicted by Burns. The poem deals so graphically 
with a subject peculiarly fascinating to almost every 
mind that it will always awaken special interest. It 
is indeed simply natural to enter into ' ' Tam o' Shan- 
ter's " joys, to go with him on his perilous ride on that 
ever-memorable night and to feel for him and " noble 



8o TAM O' SHANTER. 

Maggie" in the trying experiences which awaited 
them. 

"Tarn o' Shanter" is a fine example of sustained 
strength, and of exceptional descriptive powers. The 
poet fully prepares us for the changes of scene and 
action which Tam and his gray mare experienced. 
The opening stanzas contain words of prophecy and 
warning, show us Tam in his most convivial mood 
and happy in the congenial and seductive campanion- 
ship of Souter Johnny, ' ' his ancient, trusty, drouthy 
crony," and Burns completes the picture in four ad- 
mirable lines : — 

"As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, 
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure : 
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious 
O'er a' the ills of life victorious ! " 

The soliloquy which follows is unsurpassed and may 
well be repeated here : 

' ' But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snowfall in the river, 
A moment white — then melts forever ; 
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form. 
Evanishing amid the storm." 

The poet then ushers Tam into the darkness of mid- 
night and makes him the plaything of the angry 



TAM O' SHANTER. 8 1 

elements. From the hour Tarn was weel mounted 
on his gray mare, Meg, to the end of the composition 
Burns carries us forward with an irresistible impulse ; 
and at the close we remember Tam and his faithful 
mare with lively thoughts of "the hellish legion" 
which pursued them. 

' ' Tam o' Shanter " affords ample proof of the genius, 
imagination, and poetic talents of Eobert Burns and 
deservedly ranks among the best poems of its kind in 
the whole range of literature. 



AT ALLOWAY. 

BY DR. BENJAMIN F. LEGGETT. 

Foot sore and weary by thy roofless walls, 
While folded shadows sweet with meadow bloom 
Wave airy hands across each lichened tomb, 

What peace and rest upon the pilgrim falls ! 

From shaded haunts the tender mavis calls, 
Far off the hills in summer beauty loom, 
And near the daisies print the turf with bloom ; 

While every scene the eager soul enthralls : 

A mellow song breathes through the tasseled pine, 
The open windows seem again to glow, 

With gruesome lights the hollow walls .to shine, 
While airy shadows waver to and fro — 

Is this a dream amid the drowsy noon? 

Or whence those hoof -beats from the Brig o' Doon? 



NOTES ON TAM O'SHANTER. 

BY JOHN MUIR, F. S. A. SCOT. 

Douglas Graham, of Shanter, a farm on the Kirkos- 
wald coast, in Ayrshire, has been so long associated 
in the public mind as the original of Burns's eques- 
trian hero in the most wonderful ride in modern 
poetry that it is hardly worth while to bring forward 
another claimant with any great hope of having his 
claims recognized or even considered. Occasionally, 
in the correspondence of the daily newspapers, abor- 
tive efforts are made to unsaddle Tam in order that 
Maggie may gallop through the Elysian fields of poesy 
with the rightful rider on her back. One Thomas 
Reid is well known to the curious in such matters as 
a claimant for the honor of having been the prototype 
of the hero of Burns's inimitable tale. But Thomas, 
although his case is strongly supported by testimonials 
as to his bibulous habits, has not been successful in 
winning the sympathy of the public, a misfortune 
upon which Thomas may be said to look with indif- 
ference now J however much it may have concerned him 



84 TAM O' SHANTER. 

while alive ; for, as his supply of usquebaugh depended 
on the security of his reputation as the indubitable 
Tarn, we may rest assured that the goodman was not 
indifferent to his claims to a distinction with which 
his whole life was bound up, and which ultimately 
caused his end. As I am responsible for having 
brought forward Reid, I may as well quote the obitu- 
ary notice from the Scots Magazine for 1823, which 
caused the controversy on the subject when I inno- 
cently printed the following in a Glasgow newspaper : 

August 9, 1823. — At Lochwinnoch, Thomas Reid, 
laborer. He was born 21st October, 1745, in the 
clachan [sic] of Kyle, Ayrshire. The importance 
attached to this circumstance arises from his being the 
celebrated equestrian hero of Burns's poem, ''Tam o' 
Shanter." He has at length surmounted the "mos- 
ses, waters, slaps, and stiles " of life. For a consider- 
able time by -past he has been in the service of Major 
Harvey, of Castle Semple, nine months of which he 
has been incapable of labor, and to the honor of Mr. 
Harvey, be it named, he has, with a fostering and 
laudable generosity, soothed, as far as was in his 
power, the many ills of age and disease. He, however, 
still retained the desire of being ' ' f u' for weeks the- 
gither." 

Possibly few of my readers have ever heard of Tarn 
Skelpit, another claimant. We ourselves only made 
the acquaintance of Mr. Skelpit some few years ago. 
This gentleman is under the disadvantage of having 
been born at some place considerably south of the 



TAM O' SHANTER. 85 

Tweed. Our own impression is that he is a Londoner, 
pure and simple; and may, as a boy, have carried 
crumpets and muffins to Samuel Pickwick, Esq., or 
even have acted as stable hand to Mr. Weller, Sr., 
but he certainly never "rode the gray mare Meg." 
He was first introduced to the reading public by a 
London publisher who caters for those whose biblio- 
mania takes the form of a passion for cheap paper- 
cover editions of the classics. We quote the following 
lines, in which Tam is described as careering on his 
mad journey : 

Tam Skelpit on thro' dub and mire, 
Despising wind and rain and fire ; 
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet, 
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet. 

With reference to the obituary notice quoted from 
the Scots Magazine, and reprinted by me in the Glas- 
gow Herald, the following interesting letter from James 
W. Shand-Harvey, Esq., of Castle Semple, Lochwin- 
noch, appeared: 

My attention has been called to letters which have 
recently appeared in your columns (on the 7th and 
9th ult.) with regard to this worthy. Two obituary 
notices have been referred to by your correspondents, 
one taken from a volume of the Scots Magazine of 
1823, and the other from the Glasgow Courier of 19th 
August of the same year. They show that Thomas 
Reid, laborer, died at Lochwinnoch on the 9th August, 
1823. Attention is called to this occurrence, because 



86 TAM O' SHANTER. 



he was the famous " Tarn o' Shanter." I have found 
a similar announcement in Blackwood's Magazine for 
September, 1823, Vol. XIV., page 375. It runs as 
follows : 

' ' Died, at Lochwinnoch, 9th August, 1823, Thomas 
Reid, laborer. He was born on the 21st October, 1745, 
in the clachan of Kyle, Ayrshire. The importance 
attached to this circumstance arises from his being the 
celebrated equestrian hero of Burns's poem " Tam o' 
Shanter." He has at length surmounted the ' mosses, 
waters, slaps, and stiles' of life. For a considerable 
time by-past he has been in the service of Major Har- 
vey, of Castle Semple, nine months of which he has 
been incapable of labor. He, however, still retained 
the desire of being ' fu' for weeks thegither '." 

It is worthy of remark that there is no hesitation or 
doubt expressed in these three notices with regard to 
this individual being the real prototype of ' ' Tam o' 
Shanter." Another curious point is they all make 
mention of the "clachan of Kyle." What do these 
words signify? Clachan, as is well known, means a 
small village in which there is a parish church ; else- 
where it is called kirk-town. It is derived from Gael, 
clachan^ a circle of stones, as churches were erected 
in the same places which in times of heathenism had 
been consecrated for Druidical worship, Kyle, with 
Car rick and Cunninghame, were the three ancient 
divisions of Ayrshire. 

' ' Kyle for a man, 
Carrick for a coo, 

Cunninghame for butter and cheese, 
And Galloway for woo." 

It would appear as if a mistake had been made with 
regard to the birthplace of Thomas Reid, but it looks 
such a curious and incomprehensible error that it is 
difficult to understand how it could have been allowed 
to pass unnoticed in the pages of Blackwood, the Scots 
Magazine, and the Glasgow Courier. In the preface 
of the second edition (1858) of a little pamphlet en- 
titled " The Real Souter Johnny," a poem by the late 



TAM O' SHANTER. 87 



Mr. Porteous, Maybole, printed by Hugh Henry, Ayr, 
it is stated that the heroic Tarn was Douglas Graham 
"without controversy." Evidently the writer must 
have been unaware of the notices already referred to. 
It would be interesting to ascertain if they have ever 
been challenged in the pages of the publications in 
which they appeared, or elsewhere. Perhaps some 
of your numerous readers who take an interest in 
Burnsiana will make inquiry as to this ; for it would 
be passing strange, indeed, if it turned out they had 
never been taken notice of till your correspondent, 
Mr. John Muir, set the ball arolhng. 

In support of the view that Thomas Reid might 
have been the real " Shanter," I would mention that 
I have before me as I write a pony's hoof made into a 
snuff-box. It is shod with a band of iron. On the 
iron is engraved — "Shoe made from Tam o' Shanter 's 
knife." On the silver mountings of the lid is the 
following : 

" For ev'ry hoof he ca'd a shoe on, 
The smith and Tam got rantin' fu' on. 
J. R. Lee-Harvey, Castle Semple, July, 1824." 

I have always understood that the hoof was that of 
a favorite pony which had belonged to one of my 
predecessors, J. R. Lee-Harvey. The knife with which 
it was shod was given to him, when quite a small boy, 
by Thomas Reid, who was then working here as a 
laborer, and considered at that time by many to be 
the real "Tam." I hardly think Colonel Harvey 
would have allowed the shoe to be engraved and 
nailed on the hoof unless there had been reasonable 
ground for believing that Thomas Reid was the 
"Shanter." My grieve John Nelson tells me that he 
remembers his father, who was here in the same posi- 
tion before him, saying that Thomas Reid was the 
real "Tam," that he was a tall, thin man, and worked 
here as a hedger, and John Nelson can point out the 
hedges which he was told by his father had been 
planted by Thomas Reid. His great expression to 



88 TAM O' SHANTER. 

show his pleasure with anything was to say it was 
glorious, and he was notorious as being a confirmed 
tippler. 

I am, of course, aware that in the various editions 
of Burns's poems Douglas Graham is referred to as 
the original " Tam o' Shanter; " but it is quite possible 
that Thomas Reid might have been a laborer on the 
farm of Shanter when the poem was written, which 
was, I think, about 1790. It might have been that 
Burns did not like to call attention to Douglas Graham 
in too direct a fashion ; or perhaps for rhythmic pur- 
poses the laborer's name suited his muse better than 
that of the farmer, so he adopted ' ' Tarn " as the name 
of the hero of his celebrated poem. 

From what I have been able to gather from several 
old people about here, I think it is clear that Thomas 
Reid came originally from Shanter, or its neighbor- 
hood. Admitting for argument's sake that he was 
not the real " Tarn," it is quite possible that after the 
absorption of much whiskey he brought himself and 
others to believe that he was that individual. I hope 
some of your readers will be able to throw some light 
on this point ; but I think it will be difficult to prove 
that the paragraphs in Blackwood, the Scots Magazine^ 
and the Glasgow Courier were correct, and that the 
mortal remains of the celebrated "Tam" lie buried in 
the old churchyard at Lochwinnoch. 

James W. Shand-Harvey. 

I find in an old note-book of mine this information 
about "Souter Johnny": ''One John Lauchlan, a 
shoemaker in Ayr, was the person destined by Burns 
to immortal remembrance as Souter Johnny. He died 
in 1819 and was buried in Alio way kirkyard, about 
three miles from Ayr, and was laid a few graves from 
that of the venerable father of the poet. When the 
weight of years deprived him of the resources of in- 



TAM O' SHANTER. 89 

dustry, having no relatives in a position to provide a 
home and pillow of ease for the decline of his life, he 
retired to a charitable institution. There, however, 
he only slept. The kindness of many friends supplied 
him with all the other comforts he required, and his 
son, now grown up, would have taken him to his 
home, but he was contented as he was, and knew that 
his ' auld banes ' would soon be removed where they 
would give no pain to himself, nor trouble to his 
friends." In Blackwood for the month of November, 
1823, I find the following obituary notices connected 
with the name of Burns. Strange enough, they are 
both on one page: — "Lately, on her passage from 
India, Jane, eldest daughter of James Burns, Esq., 
youngest son of the Ayrshire poet; " and next, " 2nd 
October. — At Doon Foot Mill, Mr. David Watt, miller, 
in the 68th year of his age. He was schoolfellow 
with the celebrated Robert Burns, and was the last 
person baptised in Alio way Kirk." 

Thomas Carlyle, in his celebrated essay on Burns 
which is known wherever the English language is 
spoken and the songs of Burns sung, gives his opinion 
of "Tarn o' Shanter" in terms which do not equal 
the warmth of his general appreciation of the life and 
works of the poet. 



90 TAM O' SHANTER. 

' ' Tarn o' Shanter, " he says, ' ' is not so much a poem, 
as a piece of sparkling rhetoric ; the heart and body 
of the story still lies hard and dead. He has not gone 
back, into that dark, earnest, wondering age, when 
the tradition was believed, and when it took its rise ; 
he does not attempt, by any new modeling of his 
supernatural ware, to strike anew that deep mys- 
terious chord of human nature, which once responded 
to such things ; and which lives in us too, and will 
forever live, though silent now, or vibrating with far 
other notes, and to far different issues. Our German 
readers will understand us, when we say, that he is 
not the Tieck but the Musaus of this tale. Externally 
it is all green and living; yet look closer, it is no firm 
growth, but only ivy on a rock. The piece does not 
properly cohere: the strange chasm which yawns 
in our incredulous imaginations between the Ayr 
public-house and the gate of Tophet, is nowhere 
bridged over, nay the idea of such a bridge is laughed 
at; and thus the tragedy of the adventure becomes 
a mere drunken phantasmagoria, or many-colored 
spectrum painted on ale- vapors, and the farce alone 
has any reality. We do not say that Burns should 
have made much more of this tradition ; we rather 
think that, for strictly poetical purposes, not much 
was to be made of it. Neither are we blind to the 
deep, varied, genial power displayed, in what he has 
actually accomplished ; but we find far more ' Shak- 
spearean ' qualities, as these of ' ' Tam o' Shanter " have 
been fondly named, in many of his other pieces — may 
we incline to believe that this latter might have been 
written, all but quite as well, by a man who, in place 
of genius, had only possessed talent." 

It is doubtful whether to the ordinary reader Carlyle 
has made his meaning any clearer by contrasting 
Burns with Tieck and Musaus, the latter of whom, in 
his method of treating subjects borrowed from folk- 
lore, our critic thinks he resembles. We may here 



TAM O' SHANTER. 91 

state that the " Volksmarchen " of Ludwig Tieck 
possess all these qualities which Carlyle points out 
as wanting in similar compositions by Burns and 
Musaus. 



THE IMMORTAL TALE OF 
TAM O' SHANTER. 

FROM BLACKIE'S EDITION OF BURNS. 

And here, one day between breakfast and dinner, 
he composed "Tarn o' Shanter." The fact is hardly 
credible, but we are willing to believe it. Dorset only 
corrected his famous ' ' To all ye ladies now on land, 
we men at sea indite," the night before an expected 
engagement, a proof of his self-possession ; but he had 
been working at it for days. Dry den dashed off his 
"Alexander's Feast" in no time, but the labor of 
weeks was bestowed on it before it assumed its present 
shape. " Tam o' Shanter " is superior in force and 
fire to that ode. Never did genius go at such a gallop 
— setting off at score, and making play, but without 
whip or spur, from starting to winning post. All is 
inspiration. His wife with her weans a little way 
aside among the broom watched him at work as he 
was striding up and down the brow of the Scaur, and 
reciting to himself like one demented : 

" Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans." 



TAM O' SHANTER. 93 

His bonnie Jean must have been sorely perplexed — 
but she was familiar with all his moods, and like a 
good wife left him to his cogitations. It is " all made 
out of the builder's brain;" for the story that sug- 
gested it is no story at all, the dull lie of a drunken 
dotard. From the poet's imagination it came forth a 
perfect poem, impregnated with the native spirit of 
Scottish superstition. Few or none of our old tradi- 
tionary- tales of witches are very appalling ; they had 
not their origin in the depths of the people's heart. 
There is a meanness in their mysteries, the ludicrous 
mixes with the horrible ; much matter there is for the 
poetical, and more perhaps for the picturesque, but 
the pathetic is seldom found there, and never — for 
Shakespeare we fear was not a Scotsman — the sublime. 
Let no man therefore find fault with " Tarn o' Shan- 
ter, " because it strikes not a deeper chord. It strikes 
a chord that twanges strangely, and we know not 
well what it means. To vulgar eyes, too, were such 
unaccountable on-goings most often revealed of old ; 
such seers were generally doited or dazed — half -born 
idiots or ne'er-do-weels in drink. Had Milton's Satan 
shown his face in Scotland, folk either would not have 
known him, or thought him mad. The devil is much 



94 TAM O' SHATTER. 

indebted to Bums for having raised his character 
without impairing his individuahty : 

"O thou! whatever title suit thee, 
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie, 
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, 

Closed under hatches, 
Spairges about the brunstane cootie, 

To scaud poor wretches ! 

"Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee, 
An' let poor damned bodies be ; 
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie, 

Ev'n to a deil, 
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, 

An' hear us squeel ! " 

This is conciliatory ; and we think we see him smile. 
We can almost believe for a moment, that it does give 
him no great pleasure, that he is not inaccessible to 
pity, and at times would fain devolve his duty upon 
other hands, though we cannot expect him to resign. 
The poet knows that he is the Prince of the Air : 

"Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame; 
Far kend an' noted is thy name ; 
An' tho' yon lowin heugh's thy hame, 

Thou travels far; 
An' faith ! thou's neither lag nor lame 

Nor blate nor scaur. 

"Whyles, ranging like a roar in lion, 
For prey, a' ' holes an' comers tryin' ; 
Whyles on the strong- wing'd tempest fly in', 

Tirlin' the kirks; 
Whyles, in the human bosom pryin', 

Unseen thou lurks." 



TAM O'SHANTEE. 95 

That is magnificent — Milton's self would have 
thought so — and it could have been written by no man 
who had not studied Scripture. The Address is seen 
to take ; the Old Intrusionist is glorified by ' ' tirling 
the kirks; " and the poet thinks it right to lower his 
pride. 

"I've heard my reverend Grannie say, 
In lanely glens ye like to stray ; 
Or where auld, ruin'd castles, gray, 

Nod to the moon, 
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way 

Wi' eldritch croon. 

"When twilight did my Grannie summon 
To say her prayers, douce, honest woman ! 
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin, 

Wi' eerie drone; 
Or, rustlin' through the boortrees comin' 

Wi' heavy groan. 

" Ae dreary, windy, winter night, 
The stars shot down wi' sklentin' light, 
Wi' you mysel', I gat a fright, 

Ayont the lough ; 
Ye, like a rash-bush, stood in sight, 
Wi' waving sugh." 

Throughout the whole Address, the elements are so 
combined in him, as to give the world " assurance o' 
a deil; " but then it is the Deil of Scotland. 

Just so in "Tam o' Shanter." We know not what 
some great German genius like Goethe might have 
made of him; but we much mistake the matter, if 
" Tam o' Shanter" at AUoway Kirk be not as exem- 



96 TAM O' SHANTER. 

plary a piece of humanity as Faustus on May-day 
Night upon the Hartz Mountains. Faust does not 
well know what he would be at; but Tarn does; and 
though his views of human life be rather hazy, he 
has glimpses given him of the invisible world. His 
wife — but her tongue was no scandal — calls him 

* * * " askellum, 
A blether in, blusterin, drunken blellum ; 
That frae November till October, 
Ae market-day thou wasna sober, 
That ilka melder wi' the miller. 
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on. 
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on. 
That at the Lord's house ev'n on Sunday, 
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday, 
She prophesied, that late or soon. 
Thou wad be found deep drown' d in Doon; 
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk. 
By AUoway's auld, haunted kirk." 

That is her view of the subject; but what is Tam's? 
The same as Wordsworth's : "He sits down to his 
cups, while the storm is roaring, and heaven and 
earth are in confusion ; the night is driven on by song 
and tumultuous noise; laughter and jests thicken as 
the beverage improves upon the palate; conjugal 
fidelity archly bends to the service of general bene- 
volence; selfishness is not absent, but wearing the 
mask of social cordiality; and while these various 
elements of humanity are blended into one proud and 



TAM O' SHANTER. 97 

happy composition of elated spirits, the anger of the 
tempest without doors only heightens and sets off the 
enjoyment within. I pity him who cannot perceive 
that in all this, though there was no moral purpose, 
there is a moral effect. 

' Kings may be blest but Tam was glorious, 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.' 

What a lesson do these words convey of charitable 
indulgence for the vicious habits of the principal actor 
in the scene and of those who resemble him ! Men 
who, to the rigidly virtuous, are objects almost of 
loathing, and whom therefore they cannot serve. The 
poet, penetrating the unsightly and disgusting sur- 
faces of things, has unveiled, with exquisite skill, the 
finer ties of imagination and feeling that often bind 
those beings to practices productive of much unhap- 
piness to themselves and to those whom it is their 
duty to cherish ; and as far as he puts the reader into 
possession of this intelligent sympathy, he qualifies 
him for exercising a salutary influence over the minds 
of those who are thus deplorably deceived." 

We respectfully demur from the opinion of this wise 
and benign judge, that ' ' there was no moral purpose 
in all this, though there is a moral effect." So strong 
was his moral purpose and so deep the moral feeling 



98 TAM O' SHANTER. 

moved within him by the picture he had so vividly 
imagined, that Burns pauses, in highest moral mood, 
at the finishing touch, 

" Kings may be blest but Tamwas glorious; " 

and then, by imagery of unequaled loveliness, illu- 
strates a universal and everlasting truth : 

"But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow falls in the river, 
A moment white — then melts for ever; 
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form, 
Evanishing amid the storm. " 

Next instant he returns to Tam; and humanized 
by that exquisite poetry, we cannot help being sorry 
for him ' ' mountin' his beast in sic a night. " At the 
first clap of thunder he forgets Souter Johnny — how 
' ' conjugal fidelity archly bent to the service of gen- 
eral benevolence " — such are the terms in which the 
philosophical Wordsworth speaks of 

' ' The landlady and Tam grew gracious, 
Wi' favors secret, sweet, and precious; " 

and as the haunted ruin draws nigh, he remembers 
not only Kate's advice but her prophecy. He has 
passed by some fearful places ; at the slightest touch 
of the necromancer, how fast one after another wheels 



TAM O' SHANTER. 99 

by, telling at what rate Tarn rode ! And we forget 
that we are not riding behind him, 

*' When glinunering thro' the groaning trees, 
Kirk Alio way seem'd in a bleeze ! " 

We defy any man of woman born to tell us who 
these witches and warlocks are, and why the devil 
brought them here into Alio way Kirk. True 

' ' That night, a child might understand, 
The deil had business on his hand ; " 

but that is not the question — the question is what 

business ? Was it a ball given him on the anniversary 

of the Fall! 

' ' There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast ; 
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large. 
To gie them music was his charge ; " 

and pray who is to pay the piper? We fear that young 
witch Nannie ! 

*' Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain. 
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main ; " 

and this may be the nuptial night of the Prince — for 
the tyke is he — of the fallen angels ! 

How was Tam able to stand the sight, ' ' glorious " 
and "heroic " as he was, of the open presses? 

"Coffins stood round like open presses. 
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; 
And (by some devilish cantraip slight), 
Each in its cauld hand held a light." 

LofC. 



lOO TAM O'SHANTER. 

Because, show a man some sight that is altogether 
miraculously dreadful, and he either faints or feels no 
fear. Or say rather, let a man stand the first glower 
at it, and he will make comparatively light of the 
details. There was Auld Nick himself,- there was no 
mistaking him, and there were 

" Wither'd beldams, auld and droll, 
Eigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, 
Louping an' flinging — " 

to such dancing what cared Tarn who held the candles. 
He was bedeviled, bewarlocked and bewitched, and 
therefore 

"... able 
To note upon the haly table, 
A murderer's banes in gibbet aims ; 
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns ; 
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, 
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; 
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red rusted ; 
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted ; 
A garter, which a babe had strangled ; 
A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son o' hfe bereft. 
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft." 

This collection has all the effect of a selection. The 
bodies were not placed there; but following each 
others' heels, they stretched themselves out of their 
own accord upon the haly table. They had received 
a summons to the festival, which murderer and 
murdered must obey. But mind ye, Tarn could not 



TAM O'SHANTBR. lOI 

see what you see. Who told him that that garter 
had strangled a babe? That that was a parricide's 
knife? Nobody— and that is a flaw. For Tarn looks 
with his bodily eyes only, and can know only what 
they show him ; but Burns knew it, and believed Tarn 
knew it too ; and we know it, for Burns tells us, and 
we believe Tarn as wise as ourselves ; for we almost 
turn Tam — the poet himself being the only real war- 
lock of them all. 

You know why that Haly Table is so pleasant to 
the apples of all those evil eyes? They feed upon the 
dead, not merely because they love wickedness, but 
because they inspire it into the quick. Who murdered 
his father but at the instigation of that ' ' towzie tyke, 
black, grim and large"? Who, but for him, ever 
strangled her new-born child? Scimitars and toma- 
hawks ! Why, such weapons never were in use in 
Scotland. True. But they have long been in use in 
the wilderness of the western world, and among the 
orient cities of Mahoun, and his empire extends to 
the uttermost parts of the earth. 



SOUTER JOHNNY'S BIBLE. 

Mr. Murdoch, of the Ayrshire Post, Ayr, writing 
in the issue of that journal of date November 17, 
1893, says: "Ah! what an interesting story the Book 
could tell ! Think how often the Book has been taken 
from the shelf and read at the ingle ! Think how 
often it has been carried to the house of worship and 
studied with that enthusiasm characteristic of Scots- 
men! Think of the joys and the sorrows it has wit- 
nessed in its owners' home! No wonder a Bums 
enthusiast waxes sentimental. Sentiment for the 
landmarks and relics of Scotland is often disparaged, 
but sentiment, nevertheless, has torn down thrones 
and municipalities. It is a beautiful specimen of the 
family Bible, and well "thoomed." The "brods" 
are of leather said to have been tanned by Tam o' 
Shanter's "ancient, trusty, drouthy cronie." The 
Book consists of the Old Testament, Apocrypha, New 
Testament, and Psalms. It appears to have been 
printed in 1762 by Alexander Kincaid, His Majesty's 
printer, Edinburgh. On the front leaf is the fol- 
lowing : 



TAM O' SHANTER. 103 

' ' ' This Bible, price seven shillings and sixpence, 
bought in the year 1768. John Davidson augh this 
Book. Written in the year 1769.' 

" Between the end of the Old Testament and the be- 
ginning of the Apocrypha there is the following 
written in a beautiful hand ; and on comparing the 
writing with that of Hugh Eodger, Bums's school- 
master at Kirkoswald, I found a strong resemblance, 
particularly in regard to the capital D's. 

" ' John Davidson was baptised February 11, 1728. 
Ann Gillespie, spous to John Davidson, was baptised 
July 11, 1731. John Davidson and Ann Gillespie was 
married July 31, 1763. Margrate Davidson was born 
June 5, 1764. Agnas Davidson was born February 
5, 1767. Matthew Davidson was born August 14, 
1769, old stile, on Friday, at three of the clock in the 
afternoon, in the third hour, about the middle of it 
being under the plannet Venus and the Sine Virgo 
being the sixth hour, and being the twenty-fourth day 
of the age of the ' 

The last word cannot be read, but it is probably 
moon. Over the page and written in various hands is : 

' ' ' Ann Davidson was born December 11, 1772. John 
Davidson was born December 11, 1772, years, old stile. 
John Davidson was born July, 1804. James Davidson 
was born May 13, 1806. Jennat Davidson was born 
June 6, 1808. Hannah Davidson was born November, 
1813. William was born December 25, 1815. Matthew 
Davidson, August, 1820. Thomas Davidson was born 
on Whitsunday, Anno Domine, 1824.' 

" Souter Johnny was not a paragon of virtue, and 
some of the goody-goody class of persons may wonder 



104 TAM O' SHANTER. 

why a possession of his should be valued so high. 
Without Tam and the Souter we would have been 
poorer in poesy to-day ; we would have been without 
some of the noblest thoughts of a master mind." 

Writing to the editor of this volume in April, 1894, 
the same journalist says : 

" William and Matthew Davidson, grandsons of the 
Souter, and both shoemakers in Kirkoswald, died last 
year, and to show that they were in satisfactory 
circumstances, I append an extract from the list of 
Ayrshire wills: — Matthew Davidson left £1751.13.8; 
William Davidson left £1155.0.8." 

It is stated on reliable authority that the relic is to 
become the property of a nephew of deceased William 
Davidson. His name is Mr. John Davidson, Wood- 
side, Beith. 



AT ALLOWAY'S HAUNTED KIRK. 

By the roadside at the foot of the narrow steps 
which ascend to AUoway's ancient kirk-yard, two 
people, who may be called the Ramblers, stumbled 
upon a blind beggar and a wide-awake dog. It was 
a dog remarkable in many ways ; it was white on a 
muddy day, sleek and well-nourished, intelligent and 
altogether unlike the cowed animal tethered to the 
blind by a leading string. The Eamblers having be- 
stowed a "collection" and received thanks glibly 
wagged off tongue and tail, mounted the steep steps 
to explore. They saw right in front of them a pic- 
turesque figure meditating among the tombs. Simul- 
taneously a whispered desire to sketch the old man 
passed between the misguided visitors, when the in- 
tended subject of pen-and-pencil attentions slowly 
raised his voice and his long forefinger. We stood 
beside the grave of the poet's relatives — a swift look 
at the tombstone had already intimated as much 
to the Ramblers, but they murmured thanks for the 
information. After a minute or so Tam o' Shanter 
stalked on to an ancient, dilapidated stone and again 



lo6 TAM O' SHANTER. 

lifted his voice in monotone ; the coarse Tarn o' Shan- 
ter bonnet was drawn well down over one side of his 
wrinkled brow, his gray-blue eye proclaimed the true 
Scot ; the increasing flow of carefully chosen descrip- 
tive language gradually enlightened the Ramblers 
who had innocently believed his appearance to be 
accidental ; it dawned on them that they were in the 
hands of a guide, and a character. On he stalked 
through the slippery places ; he was in his element, 
his tongue rolled out with precision the histories of 
the grass-grown graves with only a rude device partly 
visible as the key to his harangue. Here was the 
burial-place of this and that noble family ; one dead 
and gone dame's fate elicited an emphatic opinion 
from him. "It wis a great peety, she wis a fine 
leddy. Ye noo staun foment the grave o' Souter 
Johnny, deed div ye," said the old man, "an' noo tak' 
a look ahint ye at the kirk. " The Ramblers did so; 
they saw a great tree at the side of the ruined kirk 
wall, and, half in and half out of the church a stone 
baptismal font which had received its water from a 
little stream outside. ' ' Rabbie Burns wis bapteezed 
oot o' it, an' jist anither bairn efter him, deed wis 
he," quoth the latter-day Tam o' Shanter. The Ram- 
blers gazed curiously in at what had once been Alio- 



TAM O' SHANTBR. I07 

way Kirk, and heard as in a dream who had last 
" meenistered " therein; but all of a sudden a change 
was observed to come over the guide, he drew him- 
self up to the limit of his inches, swung his long arms 
to and fro pendlumwise and began to recite " Tam o' 
Shanter " in the drollest way imaginable. One Ram- 
bler's mind was debating on what the consequences 
of stopping the swinging arms would be ; the other 
was thinking how strange it was for this old char- 
acter, in whom mischief -loving Rabbie Burns would 
have gloried, to be repeating the imaginative lines of 
Scotland's dearest poet within a stone's cast of where 
the genius was received into the visible church by the 
sprinkling of water. In the midst of these natural 
thoughts the voice ceased with a snap, and the arms 
stopped with a jerk, and the eye, the eye under the 
Tam o' Shanter's droop, took an expression which 
meant toll or — a bit of Tam's mind. An irresistible 
desire to laugh outright at this jump from the poetry 
to the prose of life seized the Ramblers, but was 
sternly repressed. Tam's horny hand was crossed 
with silver and he took up his meditative position once 
more among the tombs. Farther down the road a 
little time was spent in the whitewashed kitchen 
where the Ploughman-Poet was born. The table was 



I08 TAM O' SHANTER. 

richly carved — with initials; the window ledge — such 
a tiny window — was spluttered with ink from visit- 
or's pens ; the chairs, at least one of them, had cord 
tied so that it might not be sat upon. Verily a sim- 
ple, but hallowed place! Driving towards Ayr, a 
little later, the eyes of the Ramblers fell on a small 
but interesting procession hobbling and chuckling 
homeward. It consisted of a blind beggar, a frisky 
dog, and Tam o' Shanter. The three were in solemn 
league and covenant ! 



THOM'S STATUES OF ''TAM" AND 
^'SOUTER" IN AMERICA. 

Two of the characters — Tain o' Shanter and Souter 
Johnny — made famous by the poet Burns and now 
immortalized in stone, grace the vestibule of the Free 
Public Library in Paterson, N. J., U. S, A., where 
they will in all probability remain for many years to 
come. These famous statues are larger than life, and 
occupy positions on each side of the doorway leading 
to the library readiug-room ; sitting in. highbacked 
chairs, just as they did at the entrance to the old inn 
at Ayr. They are carved out of solid blocks of sand- 
stone, and are artistic to the finest detail. The story 
of the statues is no less interesting than that of Burns 's 
original characters. 

They were carved by James Thorn, a Scottish 
sculptor. Thom was born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1790. 
His father was a poor laboring man and could ill 
afford to send his boy to the district schools. James, 
therefore, at a very tender age, was apprenticed to a 
stonecutter and was compelled to begin work shaping 



no TAM O' SHANTER. 

square building stones cut from the stone quar- 
ries of his native country. He served seven years as 
a stonecutter, but toward the latter part of his ap- 
prenticeship he began to carve his since famous Tarn 
o' Shanter group, which was done as a labor of art 
and love, and in admiration of Bums. The group 
had been completed for a long time, but Thorn lived 
in comparative obscurity in his native town until it 
got favorable mention, and from that time he at- 
tracted public attention. 

After a great deal of urging Thorn sent the group 
to London to be exhibited in the large towns of Eng- 
land. The statues were finally shipped to New York 
in care of an agent, who was to remit the proceeds of 
the exhibit to those from whom Thom had received 
loans. This was in 1834. The statues attracted 
considerable attention in New York, and were sent to 
other large cities. But the remittances, at first large, 
failed at last to reach London, and Thorn's creditors 
became anxious. The sculptor was then sent to 
America in 1836 to look after the statuary. He ar- 
rived none too soon. The agent had become a prof- 
ligate, and after appropriating all he could gather, he 
had sold some of the pieces and was about to dispose 
of the remainder. 



TAM O' SHANTER. Ill 

Thorn came upon the rascal in Paterson, and by 
process of law compelled him to restore the pieces sold 
and some of the profits of the exhibition. Remitting 
the cash to his creditors, the sculptures he placed in an- 
other agent's hands, and again " Tam " and his cronies 
went on their travels. They were shipped to Charles- 
ton, and while en route the figures of the landlord 
and his wife went overboard from the deck of the 
vessel, and only "Tam" and the "Souter" were left. 

Thom remained in Paterson. He liked the town 
because, as he said, it reminded him in some respects 
of the green fields of his native place. '' Tam " and 
' ' Souter " came back to him, and for a long time they 
stood in a corner of the tavern at Little Falls, about 
four miles from Paterson and where Thom sometimes 
made his home. 

Roswell L. Colt, a wealthy Patersonian, who owned 
a great deal of real estate at that time, advanced 
money to Thom to enable him to work a quarry of 
sandstone he had found at Little Falls, and took the 
statuary as security at Thom's request. He set "Tam " 
and " Souter" on the porch of the Roswell Mansion on 
Colt's Hill. That was over fifty years ago. Thom 
was never able to redeem the pieces, and as his 
originals they are greatly prized, although he must 



112 TAM O' SHANTER. 

have reproduced them, as a second group, probably- 
made from Little Falls sandstone, was exhibited as 
his work in Philadelphia and Washington. This group 
was finally given to the Fair mount Park Association, 
where it remains to-day as the property of the Park 
Art Association. 

But prosperity proved Thom's adversity. Success 
was too much for him. He took to strong drink, bad 
habits, and dissipation ; and his property passed away 
from him, and in a miserable lodging-house in New 
York, almost if not quite penniless, he died in 1850. 
Thorn left a son who is said to be quite famous as a 
painter. He visited this country several years ago, 
but finally returned to Scotland. 

The statues now in the library were given to the 
trustees by Morgan G. Colt and Mrs. De Grasse B. 
Fowler, a son and daughter of Thom's benefactor. 



THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF 
TAM O' SHANTER. 

Some years ago, Messrs, Adams & Francis, of Lon- 
don, published a work entitled: "Tarn o' Shanter and 
Lament of Mary Queen of Scots ; by Robert Burns. 
The original manuscript reproduced by the Photo- 
chromolith process. With an introduction by Moy 
Thomas, Esq." The process of photolithography 
renders it impossible that there can be any difference 
in the minutest particular between the copy and the 
thing itself. Where the poet hesitated, where he 
erased, where he inserted lines, even where his hand 
faltered, may here be seen. The large, upright, bold, 
handwriting of Burns is well known and characteristic. 
Some of his alterations are curious. In describing 
the interior of Alloway Kirk, during the dance of 
warlocks and witches, the poet wrote : 

" The torches climb around the wa', 
Infernal fires, blue bleezing a'." 

The lines did not please him; he struck them out, and 
wrote in the margin the inimitable description : 



114 TAM O' SHANTER. 

" Coffins stood round, like open presses, 
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; 
And by some devilish cantraip sleight. 
Each in its cauld hand held a light." 

And among the ghastly objects which Tam beheld on 
the table were — 

' ' Five tomahawks wi' blude red-rusted, 
Five scimitars wi' murder crusted ; 
Seven gallows-pins, three hangman^s whittles, 
A raw o' weel-seaVd doctors'' bottles ; 
A garter which a babe had strangled, 
A knife a father's throat had mangled." 

The two lines we have printed in italics were seen to 
detract from the horrors of the spectacle, and the poet 
wisely expunged them. 



THE ROUTE PURSUED BY TAM. 

On this subject, the late Mr. James Paterson, a 
well-known antiquarian authority, has the following 
in his "History of Ayrshire," published in 1847: 

' 'The route pursued by Tarn on the memorable night 
of his adventure lay considerably westward from th e 
present road. The descriptive part of this inimitable 
poem evidently refers to a period antecedent to the 
existing characteristics of the locality; and unless 
aware of the circumstance, the reader will attempt in 
vain to comprehend the landmarks so happily alluded 
to by the poet. Various opinions are entertained as 
to the exact line of the old road. Some assert that 
the whole land between the Doon and Ayr being com- 
mon property and unenclosed, there was no regular 
highway, but a number of by-paths, which travelers 
used to adopt as it happened to suit them. Others 
contend that the main road diverged from the Town- 
head or Carrick Vennel of Ayr, across by the house 
of Burns, till it reached the Doon, which at that time, 
it is supposed, ran into the sea near Seafield ; the road 
from thence traversing the banks of the river until it 



Il6 TAM O' SHANTEE. 

gained the Old Bridge at the Monument. It is pos- 
sible that a branch road ran in this direction, crossing 
the Doon by a ford near to where the Low Bridge 
now stands; but, be this as it may, circumstances 
strongly argue in favor of a more easterly direction 
as the path pursued by Tam o' Shanter. This con- 
jecture is not only supported by tradition, but is 
strictly in accordance with the description of the 
poet — 

' ' By this time he was cross the ford, 
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd." 

The ford across the Curtican, now called the Slap- 
house Burn, is traceable about two hundred yards 
west of Slaphouse. On the rising ground near to this 
a religious house anciently existed, dedicated to St. 
Leonard, the ruins of which were removed within 
remembrance. The place where it stood is still called 
Chapel Field ; and a few houses, where a cross road 
leads to the beach, bear the name of Chapel Park 
Cottages. A short distance beyond the ford, to the 

left, the 

" . . . meikle stane 
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane " 

is pointed out as the identical stumbling-block over 
which the unfortunate wight was precipitated. Con- 



TAM O' SHANTER. "7 

tinuing its westerly bend from the Chapel Park, the 
road is supposed to have passed between Belleisle and 
Summerfield ; and is said to be yet partially indicated 
by the belt of wooding, planted after it had been 
superseded, along the margin of a level field — formerly 
a morass — southeast of Belleisle. The connection of 
the line, however, is lost in cultivation — modem im- 
provement having wrought an entire change on the 
face of the district ; but that it passed through the 
lands of Greenfield or of Montcharles is apparent 
from the words of the poet : 

"And through the whins and by the cairn 
Where hunters fand the murdered bairn." 

Little more than half a century since, the now fertile 
lands of Greenfield — in which the cairn, marked by a 
solitary tree, is situated — were covered with whins 
and brushwood. The cairn is an ancient tumulus ; 
the tenant, the late Mr. Gird wood, having digged up, 
some years ago, a number of urns and other remains 
of mortality. From the vicinity of the cairn the road 
appears to have proceeded in the direction of the 
Doon, and traversing the high banks above the river, 
wound past the kirk of Alloway on the south, where 
it gained the "Auld Brig," rendered famous by the 



Il8 TAM O' SHANTER. 

poet. This supposition is obviously confirmed by the 

subsequent lines: 

' ' And near the thorn ^ aboon the well, 
Where Mungo's mither hanged hersel'. 
Before him Doon pours all his floods, 
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods." 

Tam had passed the cairn, was nearing the thorn, 
and before him Doon "pour'd a' his floods." If the 
road had traversed the river's banks nearly the whole 
way from Ayr, as asserted by some, the words ' ' be- 
fore him " would be inapplicable, because Tam would 
have been, by the time he passed the cairn, proceeding 
in a parallel line with the water. The cairn, besides, 
would have been so far distant from his path as to 
inspire no feeling of terror. Mungo's Well is in the 
inmaediate vicinity of the kirk, on the sloping bank 
of the river. It may not, perhaps, be generally known 
that St. Mungo was the patron saint of Alio way. 
The poet probably indulged his satirical humor in 
attributing self-destruction to the mother of the saint. 
In no other direction than from the south, as we have 
supposed, could the adventurous hero of the tale have 
had a view of the 

" . . winnock-bunker in the east. 
There sat auld Nick in shape o' beast." 

The churchyard, extending on the north and west to 
a much greater degree than at present, would have 
completely precluded his approach. 



ALLOWAY KIRK. 

PROM CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL, 1833. 

Alloway Kirk, with its little enclosed burial-ground, 
stands beside the road from Ayr to Maybole, about 
two miles from the former town. The church has 
long been roofless, but the walls are pretty well pre- 
served, and it still retains its bell at the east end. 
Upon the whole, the spectator is struck with the idea 
that the witches must have had a rather narrow stage 
for the performance of their revels, as described in 
the poem. The inner area is now divided by a parti- 
tion-wall, and one part forms the family burial-place 
of Mr, Cathcart of Blairston. The " winnock-bunker 
in the east," where sat the awful musician of the 
party, is a conspicuous feature, being a small window 
divided by a thick mullion. Around the building are 
the vestiges of other openings, at any of which the 
hero of the tale may be supposed to have looked upon 
the hellish scene. Within the last few years the old 
oaken rafters of the Kirk were mostly entire, but they 
have now been entirely taken away, to form in various 
shapes, memorials of a place so remarkably signalized 



120 TAM O' SHANTER. 

by genius. It is necessary for those who survey the 

ground in reference to the poem, to be informed, that 

the old road from Ayr to this spot, by which Burns 

supposed his hero to have approached AUoway Kirk, 

was considerably to the west of the present one; 

which, nevertheless, has existed since before the 

time of Burns. Upon a field about a quarter of a 

mile to the northwest of the Kirk is a single tree 

enclosed within a pahng, the last remnant of a group 

which covered 

" . . . . the cairn 
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ; " 

and immediately beyond that object is 

" . . . . the ford, 
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd " 

(namely a ford over a small burn, which soon after 
joins the Doon), being two places which Tam o' Shan- 
ter is described as having passed on his solitary way. 
The road then made a sweep towards the river; and, 
passing a well which trickles down into the Doon 
(where formerly stood a thorn on which an individual, 
called in the poem "Mungo's mither," committed 
suicide), approached Alloway Kirk upon the west. 
These circumstances may here appear trivial, but it 
is surprising with what interest any visitor to the 



TAM O' SHANTER. 121 

real scene will inquire into and behold every part of 
it which can be associated, however remotely, with 
the poem of "Tarn o' Shanter." The churchyard 
contains several old monuments, of a very humble 
description, marking the resting-places of undis- 
tinguished persons, who formerly lived in the neigh- 
borhood and probably had the usual hereditary title 
to little spaces of ground in this ancient cemetery. 
Among those persons, rests William Burnes, father 
of the poet, over whose grave the son had piously 
raised a small stone, recording his name and the date 
of his death, together with the short poetical tribute 
to his memory which is copied in the works of the 
poet. But for this monument, long ago destroyed 
and carried away piecemeal, there is now substituted 
one of somewhat finer proportions. But the church- 
yard of Alloway has now become fashionable with 
the dead, as well as the living. Its little area is ab- 
solutely crowded with modern monuments, referring 
to persons many of whom have been brought from 
considerable distances to take their place in this 
doubly-consecrated ground. Among these is one to 
the memory of a person named Tyrie, who, visiting 
the spot some years ago, happened to express a wish 
that he might be interred in Alloway churchyard; 



122 TAM O' SHANTER. 

and, as fate would have it, was interred in the spot he 
had pointed out within a fortnight. Nor is this 
all ; for even the neighboring gentry are now con- 
tending for departments in this fold of the departed, 
and it is probable that the elegant mausoleum of rank 
and wealth will soon be jostling with the stunted 
obelisks of humble worth and noteless poverty. 



TAM O' SHANTER. 

FROM CUNNINGHAM'S "LIFE AND LAND OF BURNS." 

"So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 
Wi' mony an eldrich skreech and hollow." 

The scene of this most vivid and varied of all poems 
is on the banks of the Doon; and the story is em- 
bellished from tradition by the genius of the poet. It 
has, so far, a foundation in truth ; but men without 
fancy have striven to find for every image and inci- 
dent a real and substantial origin, as if all the bright 
threads of the magic web of the story were spun from 
a veritable distaff, and the characters and incidents 
which compose it had come, like sitters to a portrait 
painter, to have their likenesses transferred to the 
poet's canvas. A cupful of truth will color an ocean 
of fiction ; Bums only emblazoned his tale with a few 
localities, to give it the air of the district, and never 
imagined that he was writing a story 

"Whose accuracy all men durst swear for." 

Yet I have met with men, and critical ones, who 
averred that they had tippled with the real and 
original Tam o' Shanter, in the company of the miller 



124 TAM O' SHANTER. 

and the smith ; had heard the souter tell his queerest 
stories, when the landlord laughed and the landlady 
was condescending; and more, than that, assert that 
this poem, written on the banks of Nith, was con- 
ceived on those of Doon ; and that they knew the 
scenes where the characters of the drama dwelt ; and 
were intimate with Nanny, who wore the sark of 
Paisley harn, and had heard more of her spells than 
Burns had related. These men no doubt believed 
what they asserted ; but they were ignorant of the 
ways of the muse ; they were unacquainted with her 
secrets of composition ; and as fancy was unknown to 
them, they supposed that Bums, like a portrait 
painter, could not paint truly without individual 
models. Well may we exclaim, with the poet of 
another isle — 

" What an imposter genius is! " 
The very scene which the poet's fancy has so 
strangely peopled, is seen through the poetic medium 
of a thunder-storm, and by a man excited by super- 
stition and liquor. All that gives air and force to the 
tale is matter of imagination. Of the reaUties em- 
bellished by the muse, something, however, may be 
said. I allude not to the Howff in the town of Ayr, 
where Tam merrily prepared himself for the road ; 



TAM O' SHANTER. 125 

nor to Doon, with all her floods spanned by a solitary 
arch ; but I mean the storm of rain and fire through 
which he galloped, and the images of fear and terror 
which in quick succession prepared him for the blazing 
Kirk and its infernal inmates. " I seem to gain, in 
buffeting with the wind, " says Sir Walter Scott, in 
his inimitable diary for 1825, "a little of the high 
spirit with which in younger days I used to enjoy a 
Tam-o'-Shanter ride through darkness, wind, and 
rain ; the boughs groaning and cracking over my head, 
the good horse free to the road and impatient for 
home, and feeling the weather as little as I did. 

' The storm around might rair and rustle, 
We didna mind the storm a whistle.' " 

If the intrepid poet of Marmion had taken a mid- 
night gallop over the suspicious way where the stout 
farmer of Kyle rode, he might have thought less of the 
fire and storm than of the place where the pedler per- 
ished in the snow, the stone which broke the neck of 
tipphng Charlie, the cairn where hunters found the 
murdered child, and the haunted bush on which the 
mother of poor Mungo hanged herself. All these 
touching circumstances are, it is said, matters of tra- 
dition or of certainty ; and had they not existed, the 
poet would have suppHed their place with something 



126 TAM O' SHANTER. 

of the like spirit to stimulate Tarn, and prepare us for 
the infernal jubilee. 

Of Tarn o' Shanter there are few copies existing in 
the handwriting of Burns; the only one which con- 
tains variations is in the library of Abbotsford. A 
relic so sacred was duly esteemed by its great posses- 
sor ; he loved to show it to literary visitors and point 
out two additional lines which distinguished his copy 
from all others. I shall put them into their place; 
they will be easily discovered among their companions, 
for few who read them can fail to have the poem by 
heart. 

' ' Care, mad to see a man sae happy, 
E'en drown'd himsel' amang the nappy. 
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, 
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure. 
The cricket raised its cheering cry. 
The kitten chased its tail in joy. 
Kings may be blest, but Tarn was glorious, 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious." 

A poem which Campbell, Wordsworth, and Scott 
have praised, and on which Cooper has employed his 
pencil, requires no further commendation. It was 
written on Nithside, as a bribe to induce Grose to 
admit Alloway Kirk among his antiquities of Scot- 
land ; he composed it in one happy stroll, during a 
twilight interview with the muse, and in such an 



TAM O' SHANTER. 1 27 

ecstasy, that the tears were running down his cheeks. 
It bears all the marks of an impassioned fit and is the 
best and most finished of all his larger poems. 



BURNS AND CAPTAIN GROSE. 

BY JOHN H. INGRAM. 

"Tarn o' Shanter," the humorous masterpiece of 
Burns, was written for and published in Captain 
Grose's " Antiquities of Scotland." It is believed to 
have been modeled on a little-known poem by Allan 
Eamsay ; to whom, indeed, some of the phraseology 
as well as the ideas are due, whilst the metre is the 
same in both pieces. The story told of its rapid pro- 
duction must be regarded with suspicion ; this account 
of the composition, ascribed to Mrs. Burns is pic- 
turesque, but scarcely credible ; nor does the added 
testimony of Mr. McDiarmid count for much. The 
bard's own allusions in various extant letters to his 
favorite poem are almost conclusive as to the story 
having cost him no little time and labor. In April, 
1791, writing to Mrs. Dunlop to announce the birth 
of a son, he said, "on Saturday morning last Mrs. 
Burns made me a present of a fine boy— rather stouter, 
but not so handsome as your godson was at his time 
of life. Indeed, I look on your little namesake to be 



TAM O' SHANTER. 129 

my chef d'oeuvre in that species of manufacture, as I 
look on ' Tarn o' Shanter ' to be my standard perform- 
ance in the poetical line. 'Tis true, both the one 
and the other discover a spice of roguish waggery that 
might perhaps be as well spared ; but then they also 
show, in my opinion, a force of genius, and a. finishing 
polish, that I despair of ever excelling." 

The fact that we are indebted to Grose for the pro- 
duction of " Tam 0' Shanter" should cause all admirers 
of its author to hold the English Captain's memory in 
respect. Captain Francis Grose, a jeweler's son, 
was born at Richmond, Surrey, in 1731, and died sud- 
denly of apoplexy, at Dublin, on the 12th of May, 1791, 
just three weeks after the publication of his book 
containing the poet's chef d'oeuvre. Grose, through 
extravagance or carelessness, got rid of his fortune, 
and by the time he was thirty was pretty well re- 
duced to poverty. For a livelihood he turned his 
attention to literature, and became an author of 
artistic and antiquarian works. Between 1773 and 
1788 he produced eight quarto volumes on ' ' The An- 
tiquities of England and Wales," illustrated by about 
six hundred views from his own drawings. He then 
proceeded to Scotland to obtain material for a con- 
tinuation of his work, and at Mrs. Riddell's residence, 



I30 TAM O' SHANTER. 

Friar's Carse, met Burns. The poet and the anti- 
quarian became fast friends; the former dedicated 
several humorous verses to the glorification of the 
immense figure and merry face of the latter. Grose, 
indeed, was even more famed for his corpulency than 
for his joviality or literary talents. To induce the 
antiquarian to furnish an account and an illustration 
of Alloway Kirk, Burns promised to write a poetic 
legend in connection with the place; and "Tam o' 
Shanter" was the result. The bard presented this 
masterpiece to Grose for publication in his projected 
work on "The Antiquities of Scotland," and therein 
it eventually appeared. 

Burns gave Grose a letter of introduction to Dugald 
Stewart, and the contents go far to prove that the 
poet saw and recognized something more in the an- 
tiquarian than merely a jovial boon companion. 
"Stewart," he tells Grose in a letter alike honorable to 
all parties concerned, " is a man after your own 
heart; " his "principal characteristic is your favorite 
feature — that sterling independence of mind which, 
though every man's right, so few men have the cour- 
age to claim, and fewer still the magnanimity to 
support." 



TAM O' SHANTER'S RIDE. 

BY GEORGE EYRE-TODD. 

Never is a man more conscious of his manhood than 
Avhen, with bridle in hand and a good horse under 
him, he takes the road at a gallop. As his steed 
stretches out and the hoof -beats quicken, as the mile- 
stones fly past and the cool air rushes in his face, he 
casts care to the winds, his pulse beats stronger, he 
rejoices to breathe and to live. The pride and the 
pleasure of this experience has ever appealed to the 
poets, and the ringing of horse-hoofs echoes through 
the vei-se of all ages : in the warrior chants of Israel ; 
through the sounding Virgilian lines; to the rever- 
berating rhythm of the "Ride from Ghent to Aix.'^ 
But the maddest, most riotous gallop of all is, per- 
haps, that of the gray mare Meg and her master from 
Ayr to the Shanter farm. Burns was never more 
fortunate in his subject than when thus fulfilling his 
promise of providing a legend for "Alio way's auld 
haunted kirk." He did not, it is true, with the nice 
precision of the Augustan laureate, trim his verse to 



132 TAM O' SHANTER. 

a mechanical imitation of sound; but the wild rush 
and deftness of the movement of the poem — ^the quick 
succession of humor on pathos, scene upon scene, the 
ludicrous, the startling, the horrible — carry away the 
breath, and suggest more vividly than any mere 
measuring rhythm, the mad daring of that midnight 
ride. 

There is a little, old-fashioned, deep-thatched inn 
etill standing where the street leads southwards out 
of Ayr. Under its low, brown-raftered roof, it is yet 
easy to imagine how the veritable hero, Tam, may 
have sat with his cronies " fast by the ingle, bleezing 
finely," while "the night drave on wi' sangs an' 
clatter," and the storm outside hurled itself fruitlessly 
against the little deep-set window. It would need all 
the liquor he had imbibed to fortify the carouser for 
that fourteen-mile ride into Carrick. A midnight 
hurricane of rain and wind would be no pleasant en- 
counter on that lonely road, to say nothing of the 
eerie spots to be passed, and at least one point more 
than a trifle dangerous. But Tam o' Shanter was a 
stout Ayrshire farmer; and, moreover, he was ac- 
customed to face worse ragings than those of the 
elements ; so it may be supposed that, when he had 
hiccupped a last good-by to his friends, and, leaving 



TAM O'SHANTBR. 133 

the warm lights of the inn streaming into the street 
behind him, galloped off into the blackness of the 
night, it was with no stronger regret than that he 
must go so soon. HaK a mile to his right, as he 
bucketed southward along the narrow road, he 
could hear the ocean thundering its diapason on the 
broad beach of sand, and at the places where he 
crossed the open country, its spray would strike his 
cheek and fly inland with the foam from Maggie's bit. 
Sometimes, when the way led through belts of beech 
and oak woods, the branches would roar and shriek 
overhead, as they strove with maniac arms against 
the tempest. 

The old road to Maybole, and that which Tarn o* 
Shanter took, ran a little nearer the sea than the one 
which did duty in Burns's time, and still serves its 
purpose ; and about a mile out of Ayr it crosses the 
small stream at the ford where ' ' in the snaw the 
chapman smoored," at which, on the newer road, a 
curious adventure is said to have befallen the poet's 
father. There was formerly no bridge across this 
stream ; and the legend runs that William Burnes, a 
few hours before the birth of his son, in riding to Ayr 
for an attendant, found the water much swollen, and 
was requested by an old woman on the farther side 



t34 TAM O' SHANTEB. 

to carry her across. Notwithstanding his haste he 
did this; and a little later, on returning home with 
the attendant, he was surprised to find the woman 
seated by his own fireside. It is said that when the 
child was born it was placed in the gipsy's lap, and 
ehe, glancing into its palm, made a prophecy, which 
the poet has turned in one of his verses : 

He'll ha'e misfortunes great and sma', 
But aye a heart aboon them a' ; 
Hell be a credit till us a' — 

Well a' be proud o' Robin. 

If all gipsy predictions were as well fulfilled as this 
of the poet, the dark-skinned race would be far sought 
and courted. 

A few strides beyond the stream his gray mare had 
to carry Tam past a dark, uncanny spot— ''the cairn 
whare hunters fand the murder 'd bairn." It was 
covered then with trees, and one of them stiU stands 
marking the place. To the left of the old road here, 
and hard by the newer highway, lies the humble cot- 
tage, of one storey, where Robert Burns was born. 
It has been considerably altered since then, having 
been used until recently as an alehouse, and further 
accommodation having been added at each end. But 
enough of the interior remains untouched to allow of 



TAM O' SHANTER. 135 

its original aspect being realized. The house is the 
usual "but and ben," built of natural stones and clay, 
and neatly whitewashed and thatched. In the ' ' but, " 
the apartment to the left on entering from the road, 
there is little alteration ; and it was here, in the re- 
cessed bed in the wall, that the poet first saw light. 
The plain deal dresser, with dish-rack above, remains 
the same ; and the small, square, deep-set window still 
looks out behind, over the fields his father cultivated. 
An old mahogany press with drawers still stands next 
the bed; the floor is paved with irregular flags; and 
the open fireplace, with roomy, projecting chimney, 
occupies the gable. An extra door has been driven 
through the southeast comer to allow the profane 
crowd to pass through, and a larger window has been 
opened toward the road, that they may see to scratch 
their names in the visitor's book ; but the rest of the 
apartment toward the back is little changed, if any, 
since the eventful night when 

" . . .a blast o' Janwar win' 
Blew hansel in on Robin." 

The hour of his ride was too dark, however, for the 
galloping farmer to see so far over the fields. A 
weirder sight was in store for him. A few hundred 
yards farther on, when, by a well (which is still flow- 



136 TAM O'SHANTKE. 

ing) he had passed the thorn (now vanished) where 
"Mungo's mither hanged herser," just as the road 
plunged down along the woody banks of Doon, there, 
a little to the left, 

' ' . . . glimmering thro' the groaning trees 
Kirk Alloway seem'd in a bleeze." 

The gray walls of the little kirk are standing yet 
among the graves, though the last rafters of the 
ruined roof were carried off long since to be carved 
into mementoes. The tombs of Lord Alloway 's family 
occupy one end of the interior, and a partition wall 
has been built dividing off that portion ; but otherwise 
the place remains unchanged. The bell still hangs 
above the eastern gable, and under it remains the 
little window with a thick muUion, the ' ' winnock 
bunker " in which the astonished farmer, sitting on 
his mare, and looking through another opening in the 
side wall, saw the queer musician ensconsed. A more 
eerie spot on a stormy night could hardly be imagined, 
the trees shrieking and groaning around, the Doon 
roaring in the darkness far below, while the thunder 
crashed overhead, and the lurid glare of lightning 
ever and again lit up the ruin. But with the un- 
earthly accessories of warlocks and witches, corpse 
lights and open coffins, with the screech of the pipes 



TAM O' SHANTER. 137 

and grotesque contortions of the dancers, the place 
must pass comparison in horror. Yet, inspired by 
*'bold John Barleycorn," the farmer looked eagerly 
in on the revels till, fairly forgetting himself in the 
height of his admiration, with his shout of "Weel 
done, Cutty Sark ! " the lights went out, the pipes 
stopped, and the wrathful revelers streamed after 
him like angry bees. A few bounds of his mare down 
that narrow, winding, and rather dangerous road 
would carry Tam to the bridge, and the clatter of 
terrified Maggie's hoofs, as she plunged off desperately 
through the trees, seems to echo there yet. All the 
world knows how she carried her master in safety 
across the keystone of the bridge at the cost of her 
own gray tail. The feat was no easy one, for the 
single arch (still spanning the river there) was high 
and steep and narrow. Beyond the Doon the old road 
rises inland, covered deep with ash and sauch trees, 
to the open country; and Tam, pale and sober no 
doubt, but breathing freer, had still twelve long miles 
before him to the far side of Kirkoswald in Carrick, 
where sat his wife, 

" Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm." 



TAM O' SHANTER. 

FROM "BURNS AND THE KIRK " BY ALEXANDER WEBSTER. 

"Tarn o'Shanter" may be regarded as the sequel 
to " The Holy Fair." The purpose of the latter is the 
exposure of the gross desecration recurrent in the 
precincts of the house of G-od, and of the profana- 
tion of the Sacrament by sensuality, hypocrisy, 
and revelry ; the inner intention of the former being 
an exposure of the baleful superstition regarding su- 
pernatural evil beings, fostered by the Church in the 
name of religion. " Tam o' Shanter " shows a dese- 
cration of the kirk itself by the midnight dance 
therein of "warlocks and witches" to the music of 
the devil. In ' ' The Holy Fair " we are not taken into 
the Kirk, nor does the devil appear on the scene, 
though " Black Russell" speaks loudly of the "vast, 
unbottomed, boundless pit, fiU'd fou o' lowan brum- 
stane." The carnival goes on outside the kirk, though 
within touch of it. But in "Tam o' Shanter" we are 
shown the interior of the kirk, with "AuldNick" 



TAM O' SHANTER. 139 

piping in the " winnock-bunker in the east," president 
of the witches' orgie. One may easily imagine the 
orgie taking place in the Kirk of Mauchline, on the 
night of the Holy Fair. To have placed it there 
would only have been to extend the Fair, and have it 
taken up, as the night wore on and the day revelers 
had gone, inside the kirk, by creatures from the 
*' boundless pit." The revel, so placed, would have 
been a fitting sequel to the profanity of the Fair, and 
some of "the godly," searching for another "jar," 
might have been represented as seeing it. But the 
scene was not so planned by Burns ; and we take it as 
we find it, and see in it a parable of superstition of 
the most instructive kind. 

The poem originated in a friendly bargain of the 
author with Captain Grose, the antiquary; Burns 
undertaking to supply a witch or ghost story relating 
to Kirk AUoway if the Captain would include the 
kirk in his work on Scottish Antiquities. Burns set 
to work to fulfil his part of the compact on a bright 
autumn day in 1790. He was then at Ellisland, and 
went out with writing materials to "a broomy ridge 
by the river side "which was "a much-frequented 
haunt " of his, and wrote the poem in " one continuous 
fit of inspiration." It was a wondrous day's work! 



I40 TAM O' SHANTER. 

It is told as "an ascertained fact" that his wife 
(anxious, no doubt, to know what engrossing theme 
detained him so long) discovered him in "an agony 
of laughter, reciting aloud certain lines of the poem 
which he had just conceived, the tears in the mean- 
time rolling down his cheeks ; and that she withdrew 
from the neighborhood for a moment, along with 
her children, that they might not interrupt his 
ecstasy." 

Whatever rank we may give this poem relatively 
to the other poems of Burns, it must ever appear to 
us as a marvelous production ; and whether we enter 
into the spirit of its humor, or hush our mirth at the 
thrilling touch of its passages of sublime pathos, we 
feel recreated and instructed on reading or listening 
to the reading of the poem. 

The tale, as is well known, turns upon the tarrying 
of its hero by the change-house "ingle bleezing 
finely," enjoying "the reaming swats, that drank 
divinely." The "unco sight" of "warlocks and 
witches in a dance," the catastrophe to his mare, the 
narrow escape of Shanter himself from the witchly 
clutch — all arise out of the too -freely-quaffed "nappy," 
and the moral is obvious. But it has been charged 
against Burns that his poems and songs encourage 



TA»I O' SHANTER. 14I 

drinking; and that even where, as in this poem, he 
makes plain the dangers of drink, he throws such a 
glamor over the act of getting f ou that it is attrac- 
tive. It may be said here, in passing, that in such 
poems as "Scotch Drink," "The Earnest Cry," etc., 
Bums only drew drinking pictures true to life in his 
day, and sang the common feeling with regard to 
drink. And when he becomes the advocate of drink 
it is of the social glass, with which there is flow of 
sympathy, and not of sensuous solitary drinking for 
the love of drink. And in his songs of drink it is the 
same, the drinking is permeated with good fellowship. 
In fact, it is the fellowship and not the drinking that 
he glorifies. 

In "Tam o' Shanter" he paints the drinking-scene 
graphically. There is a coziness and cantiness and 
jollity about it which is catching; but the feeling is 
plainly delusive. Tam ' ' was glorious, o'er a' the ills 
o' life victorious;" but it was in sensuous stupidity. 
The souter's "queerest stories," the landlady's 
*' favors," " the landlord's laugh," were but " phan- 
tasmagoria and many-colored spectra " that deluded 
as they delighted. With all their jollity, Tam and 
' ' his ancient, trusty, drouthy crony " are fools, and 
that is made evident enough. They sit between land- 



142 TAM O' SHANTER. 

lord and landlady as in a snare, and the wiles of the 
* ' nappy " are plied 'round about them till sense and 
cash are gone. Happy as they are, we are made to 
feel that they are so at the expense of everything 
truly manly ; that the brain of the drinker is debased 
while it is dazzled. Though there is a true touch of 
humanity in their comradeship, their indulgence of 
sensuous appetite dehumanizes; and we see that if 
they meet as men they part as sots. There is not a 
single word or suggestion in the poem that is drink- 
enticing. Even the invocation of ' ' John Barleycorn " 
tells against his power. The scorn of dangers which 
he inspires is an illusion. To say nothing of the wife 
left in the neglect which begets wrath, or of the unco 
sight in the bleezing kirk, or even the moral at the 
end of the poem, all of which tell against drinking — 
that piece of natural and exquisite pathos introduced 
as anti-climax to Tam's gloriousness is enough to show 
the folly of such glory : 

' ' But pleasures are like poppies spread, " etc. 
In " Tam o' Shanter " (whatever may be the case in 
other pieces) the moral drift is reformatory. The 
poet honestly describes the drinking custom, credits 
it with all the sensuous enjoyment belonging to it ; 
but confronts it with higher things, reveals its subter- 



TAM O' SH ANTES. 143 

ranean connections, and passes a judgment against it 
which is impressed with divine sanction. 

But all the other scenes in the drama only lead up 
to the great scene in " Alio way's auld haunted kirk." 
It was the kirk which the poet had in his mind's eye 
all the while, according to the bargain with Captain 
Grose. Most cunningly and profoundly is the scene 
laid therein, and with a deep religious purpose. The 
auld haunted kirk furnished him with a habitation 
wherein to place on view the objects which supersti- 
tion, supported by religious authority, set up before 
the imagination. He knew well how orthodoxy made 
an ally of the devil and his imps, and held the people 
in terror through them. He was aware of the way in 
which the underworld had been peopled with all 
manner of evil spirits, and how even the air of com- 
mon life had been filled with bodiless creatures of 
malignant influence. He knew how terrified most 
people were in the darkness, how they trembled at 
any strange sound, how completely they were the 
victims of their own ignorant fears. And he realized 
how much the Church was to blame for this, how it 
had prevented the investigation of natural phenomena, 
hindered the exercise of reason, and rooted its author- 
ity in superstition. He perceived how ' ' preachers 



144 TAM O' SHANTER. 

of the Gospel " had used the fear of the devil as a 
strong inducement to the outward observances of 
religion," and how they had enhanced their authority 
by " their supposed ability to counteract this fearful 
adversary." And so he felt that something effective 
needed to be done to deliver men from these supersti- 
tions. 

In his "Address to the Deil " he plainly spoke a 
liberating word, and delivered the soul from ' ' the 
hangman's whip." In "Tam o' Shanter " he pursues 
the same purpose, and boldly seats the devil in the 
kirk, with all his hellish brood around him, to show 
religion the objects of its superstition. 

The placing of the " towzie tyke" in the winnock- 
bunker in the east of the Auld Kirk to superintend 
the dance of "warlocks and witches " was no mere 
fiction imagined to scare one in whose " noddle " the 
" swats reamed," but was a matter-of-fact gathering 
'round the pulpit of the hellish beings of fearsome 
creation. There was no more fitting place for the 
humorous exposure of the progeny of superstition 
than the kirk itself. The evil brood were born and 
bred under Church influence, and the parentage had 
to be brought home to it, so that it might put them to 
dissolution. With the very sublimity of daring, 



TAM 'O SHANTER. 145 

Burns gathered "the devil and his angels" in the 
kirk, and with them all the terrors of death, and then 
bade men look in to see the sight. As if emerging 
from its own floor or oozing out of its own atmos- 
phere, there appeared in the ' ' haunted kirk, " at the 
call of the wizard-poet, the ugsome creatures of dark- 
ness, the hideous things of the grave, the denizens of 
hell, the seething spawn of superstition. The kirk 
becomes Tophet, Hades, Gehenna, hell. Many a time 
had the walls echoed with talk of such things, often 
had the preacher pictured such beings to terrified 
hearers, frequently had " the ill place " been opened 
in imagination to clinch "the offer of salvation;" but 
in the poem, as if the very walls had given back the 
words, and they had become flesh, the hellish beings 
themselves come into life in the kirk, and hold their 
unholy revel on the sacred floor ! The Church could 
hardly have been prepared for such an invasion ; but 
it was the just reaction of religious superstition, and 
it could not consistently refuse to look at the ugsome 
creatures with whom it had made its members 
familiar. And to look at them in the light of com- 
mon sense was to be convicted of superstition. In 
that light they were seen to be creatures of fancy, be- 
gotten of ignorance and terror; and which had no 



146 TAM O' SHANTER. 

existence in fact whatever. To disabuse the mind of 
the mischievous fancy was, no doubt, one of the 
objects that Burns had in writing this poem. He 
knew well that religion was corrupted by it ; that the 
darkness, which was God's as well as the light, was 
made terrible to men through it ; that knowledge of 
the causes of strange phenomena was hindered by it ; 
and that the enslaving power of the clergy was main- 
tained by it. And so he set his humor to work, and 
made men able to laugh at the gross images of their 
own creation. 

To help us to understand the work that he had to 
do in dissolving the fancy of witchcraft and the gen- 
eral superstition existent regarding unknown forces 
in action around men, we must know something of 
the ideas then current concerning "warlocks and 
witches." Looking back from the earliest case of real 
importance in the prosecution of witches, Walter 
Scott says : ' ' For many years the Scottish nation had 
been remarkable for a credulous belief in witchcraft." 
The idea underlying the belief was the existence of 
the devil. He, it was thought, purchased the services 
of persons whose bodies and souls he bought for some 
payment or other. These were, at his command £ind 



TAM O' SHANTER. 147 

by his power, the instruments of all mischief and 
everything termed evil. 

Everything mysterious of a baleful kind was re- 
garded as witchery. When anything inexplicable 
happened to man or beast it was a witch who did it. 
If a field were blighted or weeds come up in the cro p, 
it was some spiteful warlock's doing. If a child fell 
sick or a woman miscarried it was the effect of some 
"evil eye." Whatever occurred by accident or mis- 
fortune was attributed to witchcraft. Witches could, 
by Satanic skill, take the shape of frogs, cats, hares , 
crows, spectres of all kinds. They had, it was sup- 
posed, power over all the elements: they could ride 
on the winds, travel in the air, or run underground . 
And everything was at their mercy — crops, property, 
and life itself. By means of them the devil was able 
to be omnipresent, and to carry out his perpetual 
malignity against the Infinite Goodness. 

The first case of witchcraft in Scotland, of which an 
account is preserved, is that of the case of the " Earl 
of Mar, brother of James III. of Scotland, who fell 
under the King's suspicion for consulting with witches 
and sorcerers how to shorten the King's days. On 
such a charge, very inexplicitly stated, the unhappy 
Mar was bled to death in his own lodgings without 



148 TAM O' SHANTEB. 

either trial or conviction; immediately after which 
catastrophe twelve women of obscure rank, and three 
or four wizards, or warlocks, as they were termed, 
were burnt at Edinburgh to give a color to the Earl's 
guilt." After that, cases of witches prosecuted to 
death are recorded in great numbers. These, as Scott 
declares, present a " certain monotony." A curious 
case, typical of others, occurred in Dumfriesshire 
half-a-century or so before the birth of Burns. One 
Bessie Kennedy was tried by the Kirk-Session of Tin- 
wald on a charge of having cursed the horse of one 
John Carruthers on a certain Sabbath, and wished 
that it might shoot to dead; and, further, with hav- 
ing, when the said John told her that his horse had 
fallen sick through her malignity, " wished that the 
shoot of dead might Ught on him and it both" (that 
is, that he and it might perish by some fatal internal 
lapse, or " schute," of the system.) The charge was 
not proved, and Bessie was dismissed; being warned, 
however, to exercise "greater watchfulness for the 
future." It was cases of that kind that suggested to 
Bums the line in "Tam o' Shanter" — "For mony a 
beast to dead she shot." Kate Steen or Stephen, who, 
it is thought, is the person represented under the 
character of " Cutty Sark," was "an inoffensive but 



TAM O' SHANTER. 149 

peculiar woman; of diminutive stature and some- 
times of strange attire ; of vagrant but industrious 
habits ; who carried her ' rock and spindle ' with her 
from house to house to spin ; and was kindly, or at 
least civilly, received everywhere, from fear, per- 
haps, of her reputed supernatural gifts as much as 
from affection." 

Now, in the fact of Katie's " peculiarity " we come 
upon the secret of the fancy of witchcraft. If a woman 
happened to be in any way ' ' peculiar " in feature, 
dress, or habit she was thought to be a witch. And 
the curious thing is that, when the peculiarity con- 
sisted of an unusual heightening of some feature or 
faculty; such as unusually large and bright eyes, 
extraordinary fluency of speech, unusual skill of 
hand, or uncommon knowledge of any kind, it was 
set down to witchcraft. 

Those who were regarded as witches mostly be- 
longed to the lower classes ; and, when we remember 
that it was in feudal times that the prosecution of 
witches was most prevalent in this country, we may 
conclude that those charged with witchcraft were 
generally independent, far-seeing, courageous women 
who took the liberty to reprove the evil doings of 
those above them. They were the social protestants 



I50 TAM O' SHANTEB. 

and insurgents of their day, impelled to speak and 
act against the powers that kept the people down. By- 
analyzing the reports of the trials of witches in Scot- 
land, we find that either some of the gentry, some 
laird or lady, or some oflBcious magnate of the law in 
the interest of the aristocracy was the complainant ; 
and the charge was generally that of shooting at a 
laird, or having bewitched the laird's affections, or of 
meddling in some way with the property of the well- 
to- do. Walter Scott says — ' 'The gentry hated witches, 
because the diseases and death of their relations and 
children were often imputed to them." We may infer, 
therefore, that those supposed to be witches were 
women of unconmion appearance and power, more 
talented than was usual with women of their station ; 
women of extraordinary energy and insight, who, 
with startling boldness or with careful but ominous 
speech, spoke against the wrongs they saw and felt. 

The same thing applies to wizards, or warlocks. It 
appears that they were not so numerous as witches, 
but they were generally men who had an extraor- 
dinary insight into nature — men of humble rank 
endowed with an extra amount of common sense, 
curiosity, and intelligence; who delighted in the in- 
vestigation of natural things. They were, in fact, 



TAM O' SHANTER. 1 51 

the scientists of their time. But they were dreaded. 
They were seen to take to do with stones, plants, and 
animals in a way that was not canny ; to explore the 
rocks, the woods, and the pools, and to have their 
houses full of strange things. And they were not 
only social protestants but theological protestants : 
heretic, infidels, men who went not to church, nor 
held the common religious ideas. Quite a large num- 
ber of charges against warlocks consist of such things 
as these — "Circulating pretended prophecies to the 
unsettlement of the State, and the endangering of the 
King's title;" enquiring into the date of the King's 
birth, anticipating his death, etc. We may judge by 
that that the warlocks were simply the radicals of 
their time; men who, when 'twas treason to think 
and speak freely, had dared to go beyond political 
and social orthodoxy. We find among other charges 
the charge of "breaking and destroying crosses" 
brought against warlocks, and that shows us that the 
warlocks were religious reformers. There can be no 
doubt that the enmity shown by the ecclesiastical 
powers against " warlocks and witches" is to be ac- 
counted for by the fact that the persons supposed to 
be in league with Satan were heterodox in thought 
and conduct. 



152 TAM O' SHANTBB. 

In these days ecclesiastical authority was very 
strict. It was ordained then by ' ' the civil magistrate " 
( in Aberdeen at least ) ' ' that nae man sail keep from 
observin and keein the sermonis and prechingis on 
the ouik days : to set Tuesday and Thursday for hear- 
ing of the Word of God, and Christian evangell treulie 
prechit. Maisters of households, their wyffs, bairns, 
and servantis and other inhabitants, cum to discretion 
of years, should be catechised every Thursday." If 
a man had some doubt about the ' ' treulie prechingis," 
or expressed some skeptical opinion regarding ' ' the 
Word of God," he was liable to be regarded as a war- 
lock ; and if a woman stayed at home to nurse a sick 
child or to perform some needful domestic duty in- 
stead of going to the "prechingis," she was likely to 
be looked upon as a witch. 

In fact, all who in any way spoke against or dis- 
obeyed the ecclesiastical ordinance were liable to be 
dragged to the stake. These ordinances were, there- 
fore, felt to be very oppressive, and there was much 
insubordination in connection with them. This was 
the case especially with regard to the Sabbath, which 
was strictly kept. The revolt against it led to the idea 
of the " witches' Sabbath." It was thought that those 
who were regarded as witches, not being at church, 



TAM O' SHANTER. 153 

were away having a meeting by themselves ; and there 
is a curious confession of a woman to the effect that 
the witches when they met were so numerous that 
"they were told off into squads, or co vines, as they 
were termed, to each of which were appointed two 
oflBcers. One of them was called the maiden of the 
covine, and was usually, like Tam o' Shanter's Nan- 
nie, a girl of personal attractions, whom Satan placed 
beside himself, and treated with particular attention. 
. . . The ceremonial of the Sabbath meetings was 
very strict. The Foul Fiend was very rigid in exact- 
ing the most ceremonious attention from his votaries, 
and the title of Lord when addressed by them." 

The ideas originated in connection with Sabbath 
superstition, and the Church took care to show by 
means of them that the devil's Sabbath was as severe 
as that of the Church. And it also prejudiced the 
people in favor of its own practices by fostering the 
fancy that the witches at their Sabbath meeting dug 
up the bodies of unchristened infants in order to use 
the materials of them for their sorceries. The moral 
was plain — have your children christened and then 
the witches will not get them. It is likely that the 
idea of the witches' Sabbath rose up out of the con- 
demned practice of walking on the Sabbath — a prac- 



154 TAM O' SHANTER. 

tice which sensible and courageous people kept up in 
spite of the censure of the Church. 

It is the shame of Calvinism in this country that it 
was the cause of the burning of thousands of inno- 
cent and highly virtuous persons as witches. Under 
its favor witch-hunting became a trade, and we read 
of one Hopkins, who, along with a male and female 
assistant, went up and down the country discovering 
witches. His usual price was "twenty shillings a 
town," and for that sum he and his assistants under- 
took to hunt down all the witches in it. " His 
principal mode of discovery was to strip the accused 
persons naked, and thrust pins into various parts of 
their body, to discover the witch's mark." If this 
failed, he tied the great toes and thumbs of his victim 
together, wrapped her in a sheet, and dragged her 
through a pond or river. If she floated she was a 
witch, and was put to death. He also kept the per- 
sons put into his power waking till they were made 
mad, or he dragged them about till, by extreme 
weariness, and the pain of blistered feet, they were 
glad to confess having the power of witchery. We 
need not wonder that poor, infirm, sensitive women, 
stripped naked and tortured, declared that they were 
actually in league with Satan. Nor is it to be won- 



TAM O' SHANTER. 155 

dered at that others who had gifts for which they 
could not account admitted the possibility of their 
being inspired by the devil. Admissions of the kind 
were extorted over and over again from the hapless 
creatures who fell under the persecution of the 
Church. 

But in order fully to comprehend what there is in 
the "warlocks and witches" as they are shown to us 
by Burns, dancing in "Alio way's auld haunted kirk," 
it is necessary to know their natural history. They 
are, as they appear in theologic thought, the servants 
of satan. To find the origin of the idea of the devil 
we require to go back to the region of mythology. 
The idea of him had its birth in the experience which 
primitive man had of a power with which he had to 
struggle for physical life and for spiritual rightness. 
That power which lived in the stubborn earth, and 
against which ( as it seemed to him ) he had to work 
in his tillage, primitive man imagined as an evil 
power, an enemy of the sky or heaven power, the 
malignant cause of all human suffering. That power 
had its emissaries in all the forces with which man 
had to struggle ; the subtle forces perpetually waging 
war against life in all forms and conditions. Invis- 
ible, but in continual activity, these hosts of evil 



156 TAM O' SHANTER. 

operated throughout the world, making always for 
darkness, cold, and barrenness against the kindly- 
hosts of light, heat, and fertility. They were the 
cause of the tempest and the blight ; winter was theirs, 
and the inclement season ; theirs also were disease, 
pain, and death. Such was the explanation which 
primitive man, in his ignorance, gave of the forces 
of Nature with which he had to struggle for food, 
shelter, and the conditions of happy life : they were 
evil beings, actuated by hate and malice. That ex- 
planation occurs in all the mythologies. 

On being introduced into modern theology, witches 
took the place of demons in ancient theology. In the 
book of Enoch we have descriptions of demons in 
which there may be discerned the germs of later ideas 
of the angels of the devil, witches, etc. It represents 
them as the offspring of the sons of God, and the 
daughters of men. It gives their number as two hun- 
dred, and declares that they devour all which the 
labor of men produces, injure animals, and even kill 
and eat men. They taught sorcery and every spe- 
cies of iniquity, and for this Jehovah sent his holy 
angels to bind the chief demons hand and foot, and 
cast them into the lower depth of the fire, in torments 
and confinement to be shut up for ever. 



TAM O' SHANTER. 157 

In the Talmud, which represents a large body of 
oral tradition which grew up in the Jewish Schools 
in Palestine and was continued long after the time 
of Christ, we find a development of demonology. In 
the cabalistic portion of the Talmud it is said — "All 
the spaces of creation are filled with good and bad 
spirits, these being divided into distinct orders having 
chiefs over them. The number of evil spirits, it is 
declared is incalculable. They swarm around every 
human being: a thousand on his right hand, ten 
thousand on his left. Their abode is a dark region 
under the moon. Their bodies are of water, fire, and 
air. They enjoy their meat and drink, and propagate 
their species after the manner of men." 

In the dark ages, demonology became a pseudo- 
science. The schoolmen arranged the numbers and 
ranks of the demons, and the districts apportioned to 
the demon chiefs. They reckoned that the armed 
force of Lucifer comprised nearly two thousand four 
hundred legions, that is fourteen million, four hun- 
dred thousand. All these were to them veritable imps 
of Satan, creatures of flesh and blood regularly trained 
for their hellish war. It is their ideas to which Milton 
gave shape in "Paradise Lost." 

It was common, then, for the preachers to declare 



158 TAM O' SHANTER. 

that they had seen processions of damned souls, 
mounted on horses of fire, which bore them along 
with the speed of the whirlwind, and without a mo- 
ment's rest, to the gates of flame. All that was to 
terrify the people into submission to the Church. The 
terror was carried into Protestantism. Martin Luther 
says in his "Table Talk" — "The devils are near us, 
and every moment ceaselessly plot against our life, 
health, and salvation. There are numerous devils in 
the woods, the waters, the deserts, in marshes and 
pools, lying in wait to injure human beings. Some 
there are in black and thick clouds occasioning thun- 
der, lightning, hail, and storms ; they blight meadows 
and poison the air." 

John Wesley was of Luther's opinion. He said that 
the giving up of belief in witchcraft is in effect giving 
up the Bible. Jonathan Edwards held the same sort 
of belief ; and Richard Baxter, whose writings were in 
the day of Burns the usual Sabbath reading — and were 
so tiU very lately — taught the same thing. Baxter 
took an active interest in the witch trials of his day, 
and believed in the confessions which the tortured 
creatures made. "Turn or burn," Baxter said to 
those whom he addressed. 

Such then, is an outline of the natural and theo- 



TAM O' SHANTER. 159 

logical history of "warlocks and witches," and by 
which it wiU be seen how deeply the idea of those 
beings as allies of the devil had entered into religious 
thought. 

To sanction the belief, the theologian had but to 
quote the Levitical command, "Thou shalt not suffer 
a witch to live." The reading of that barbarous com- 
mand as an order given by God was the fatal cause 
of the witch-burning in this and other countries ; but 
the command cannot reasonably be held to have been 
given by God. The persons called "witches" in the 
Bible were soothsayers. Their power to foretell the 
future and summon the shades from the world below 
was not doubted. They were credited with all the 
power of the Hebrew soothsayers; but they were 
heathen, and might by their incantation seduce the 
worshippers of Jehovah ; and so the priests ordered 
them to be slain. The command is an illustration of 
Hebraic religious bigotry — a piece of priestly jealousy 
on the part of Hebrew priests. Walter Scott, though 
he took the orthodox view of the command concerning 
witches, admits that "there was no contract of sub- 
jection to a diabolic power, no infernal stamp or sign 
of such a fatal league, no revelings of satan and his 
hags, and no infliction of disease or misfortune upon 



l6o TAM O' SHANTER. 

good men" implied in the references to witches in 
Scripture. Indeed, it was not from the Bible that the 
idea of witches came which caused them to be re- 
garded as servants of the devil and burnt as such, but 
from mediaeval speculation, based on the old nature- 
myths of evil agencies. 

Now, in working our way out of this question of 
"warlocks and witches" there are two things to be 
apprehended ; first, that the idea of those persons as 
emissaries of satan is a modern survival of the old 
idea of evil forces in nature adverse to man. That 
superstition, taken up by orthodoxy, was formulated 
and presented in the creeds in the now familiar dogmas 
regarding the devil and hell. It was that superstition 
that Burns had in view when he lit up Alloway Kirk 
and showed the revel therein of the progeny of fanci- 
ful speculation. 

Burns did not know what evolution has revealed to 
us. He did not know the facts that science has shown 
of the orderliness, lawfulness, and beneficence of the 
Power that works through nature. It is given to us 
to see that "evil is simply a temporary passing condi- 
tion. . . . nothing more or less than mal-adjust- 
ment. The devil and sin and sorrow and calamity 
and sickness and tears and death all resolve them- 



TAM O' SHANTER. l6i 

selves into this one word." But though Burns could 
not see this, he felt deeply the moral inconsistency of 
the idea of evil forces in nature with the idea of a 
good God, or the Over-ruler of nature and the Father 
of man. And he felt, too, how demoralizing in its in- 
fluence on conduct was the superstition about "war- 
locks and witches." While men believed that they 
were surrounded and even possessed by beings who 
were the almost almighty agents of the devil, it was 
natural for them to feel that there was little use in 
struggling against adverse powers, that there was no 
possibility of high character open to them, that the 
burden of devilry was one which, in their fallen con- 
dition, they must needs carry. The devil was a most 
convenient excuse for all sorts of immorahty : who, 
indeed, was there to blame for evil but him ? If men 
were the children of the devil, ought they not to do 
justice to their parentage ? Burns saw that the devil 
was a shelter to immorality that ought to be thrown 
down, and that it was necessary for the Church as a 
teacher of morality to lay the cause of evil where it 
ought to be laid; viz., on ignorance of natural law, 
and mal-adjustment with natural forces. The entire 
brood of superstition flies at the touch of knowledge 
of natural causes, and the devil himself is dissolved 



l62 TAM O' SHANTER. 

in the process of human adjustment with the Power 
that works through nature, moulding man. 

The other thing to be apprehended in clearing up 
this subject is that those who were regarded as ''war- 
locks and witches " were the most advanced men and 
women of their station — seers, prophets, reformers in 
humble life ; radicals, protestants, heretics in relation 
to the "chief priests and pharisees" of their day. 
Had Mary Somerville, who mastered all the sciences; 
Frances Power Cobbe, who, though deeply religious, 
cannot take the name Christian ; Mrs. Besant, who, 
while a devout and zealous servant of man, scorns the 
orthodox notion of serving God, lived two hundred 
years ago they certainly would have been burnt as 
witches. And had Hugh Miller, of Cromarty ; Thomas 
Edwards, of Banff; and Robert Dick, of Thurso, been 
seventeenth-century men they would have been put 
to death as warlocks. Above all, if Charles Darwin 
had been a contemporary of Richard Baxter, he would 
have been treated as the captain of the devil's host. 
The " warlocks and witches " were simply the martyrs 
of their day. The persecuting spirit of the Church 
had become so degraded that it seized on anything on 
which it could lay hands. Learning in those days 
was just beginning to be universal; the democracy 



TAM O'SHANTER. 163 

were commencing to think ; and the witch-hunt was 
the sport to which the degenerate sleuth-hounds of 
despotic power betook themselves. The whole pro- 
ceedings against witchcraft were the clergy's retalia- 
tion on the democratic murmurs, criticisms, and 
insubordinations threatening to become dangerous to 
the influence of the Church. They were the answer 
of the presbyter (who was but priest in another form) 
to the desire for freedom of thought and conduct de- 
sired by the mass of the people. When woman sought 
wisdom at the doors of the Church she was made a 
witch. When the workman sought justice from the 
State he was treated as a warlock. They were made 
heretics and criminals for wanting to know, and for 
acting according to their highest reason. The strug- 
gling, strange, inquiring, thinking, and outspeaking 
men and women who were treated as sorcerers were 
actually the forerunners of the scientists of our day. 
They were students of nature, persims of singular 
elevation of thought, of extraordinary common sense, 
and of unusual virtue ; the leaders and redeemers of 
their class— nonetheless the soothsayers of the demo- 
cracy though they were unconscious of having any 
extraordinary gift or call. The opposition which 
orthodoxy shows against science to-day is a survival 



1 64 TAM O' SHANTER. 

of its treatment of witchcraft. It is, in fact, the old 
witch-burning in another form. The male or female 
heretic and reformer of to-day, who has to suffer 
clerical and social persecution, is simply the warlock 
or witch of yesterday. 

All praise, then, to the courageous poet who wrote 
for us the parable of "Tam o' Shanter," and in Allo- 
way's auld "haunted kirk," showed us the forms of 
the ecclesiastical spectres and social ghosts which still 
haunt the thought and life of to-day, and taught us to 
rise above superstition and slavery into the joyous 
light of knowledge and the sweet air of manly free- 
dom. Through the bold humor of the poem, all the 
more effective though not openly declared, there shines 
the deeper lesson of the piece; viz., that if men would 
have religion and morality made true and serviceable, 
the Church free from superstition, and the State free 
from tyranny, and every effort of the mass of the 
people to rise to higher life find ready aid in the pow- 
ers that be, they must soberly, rationally, and de- 
voutly give themselves to the pursuit of knowledge ; 
demand that those appointed to teach shall teach what 
is really true, that the pulpit shall stand for the high- 
est ideas and the surest facts, and that the minister of 



TAM O' SHANTER. 165 

religion shall be one who can show men how to adjust 
themselves more harmoniously and vitally with the 
divine powers of life, so that mind, and heart, and 
soul, according well, may make one miisic of realised 
religion. And not only so, but they muat demand of 
those who are set to rule that they rule righteously, 
not to favor any, but to serve all. So long as the 
people are sensual, the Church will be warranted in 
her superstition and the State in its despotism ; but 
when once the "Souter" and the "Farmer" become 
in earnest for a manly morality, both Church and 
State will be radically refomed. 



A MEDIEVAL TAM O' SHANTER. 

ORIGIN OF BURNS'S GREAT CREATION. 

Burns is, of course, his own best commentator, and 
his original prose version of the Tarn o' Shanter story, 
as contained in the letter to Captain Grose, throws 
the fullest light upon the poem. The letter proves 
that Burns's great creation has a higher truth than 
would have belonged to it had it contained more im- 
agination and been less closely a transcript from 
country talk. Just by reason of its fidelity and its 
freedom from material embellishment, it possesses an 
historical value enhancing the admiration due to its 
luminous descriptive, narrative, and poetic power. 
Pegasus is not the less Pegasus because the poet chose 
to saddle and bridle him with facts. Leaving the 
pure wit and poetry out of account altogether, and 
considering Tam o' Shanter from a severely pedestrian 
standpoint, you find it a condensed but brilliant 
record of popular conceptions in demonology, witch- 
craft, and the ethics and practise of genial good- 
fellowship. 



TAM O' SHANTER. 167 

Tarn o' Shanter, in that aspect, is not Burns's ; it is 
Ayrshire folk-lore. It has, moreover, a moral, how- 
ever subsidiary. The poet assures us in prose that the 
tailless mare served long as an awful example to 
Carrick farmers of the dangers of drink, and his 
verse closes with a quasi -serious and immortal exhor- 
tation on the same lines extended to the world at 
large. 

Viewed in this sub-historical light as a document 
in folk-lore, and in its unique way a temperance lec- 
ture, the tale will repay a momentary survey of its 
supernatural characters. The witches, Burns scarce- 
ly tries to make grim ; they are grotesque. They are 
not Macbeth's sort. They are the witches of a dead 
creed. The belief which had so suddenly, late in the 
sixteenth century, attained such vast dimensions and 
caused so much barbarity had lost its power in little 
over a hundred years, and in two centuries was virtu- 
ally extinct. The devil, the " touzie tyke, black, grim 
and large," sitting by his " winnock-bunker in the 
east," is rather a piece of comedy than of tragedy. 
He is only suggested, not full drawn ; but what there 
is of him is the devil of the late witchcraft period 
fallen upon evil times. He is not the full-blooded 
Puritan prince of the power of the air, and he is a 



I68 TAM O'SHANTER. 

strangely different being from the mediaeval fiend. 

So much by way of preface to a legend of Ayrshire 
in the year 1290, which, in spite of the absence alike 
of mare and witches, yet presents remarkable features 
of analogy to the tale which Burns told forever in 
1790. One must anticipate a different point of view 
and a different treatment. There will be no witches, 
for the thirteenth century did not take its witches 
over-seriously. The devil will perhaps have a graver 
object in life. But there will be, if not a Kyle or 
Carrick, at least a Cunningham drunkard ; there will 
be a Cunningham public-house, with its fireside ; and 
deep potations will still have the effect of conjuring 
up the devil — to act, however, the part of an apostle 
of temperance reform. 

Historians have to thank the " Chronicle of Laner- 
cost " for many a solid fact and many a queer, mirac- 
ulous tale. A first-class record — the work of at least 
two authors ( both probably Franciscan friars in Car- 
lisle) its earher half ending about 1296 — is well spiced 
with marvels illustrative as often of the cantrips of 
demons as of the power of St. Francis and the Mother 
of Mercy. The second half, from 1296 to 1346, is so 
much occupied with Anglo -Scottish fight and foray, 
dealt with very competently more in the spirit of a 



TAM O' SHANTER. 1 69 

man of arms than a man of prayer, that the satellites 
of Satan cease from troubling. The incident of 1290 
is from the earlier half and from the miracle-loving 
hand. The friar, through his brotherhood, had ex- 
cellent opportunities on both sides of the Border in 
the years of peace before the War of Independence. 
He had gleaned his information in many fields, and at 
least one notable confirmation of a contribution of his 
to Irish hagiology makes it possible to hold with 
strong probability that even his miracles are faithfully 
reflected from the gossip of his time. 

Now to our tale. " For the sake of change of sub- 
ject," says our holy friar in his annals of the year 
1290, "there may here be related a thing that hap- 
pened in Cunningham, in the kingdom of Scotland, 
which ought to terrify tavern-keepers and restrain 
drunkards. There was once — indeed there still sur- 
vives, although now a changed man — a certain 
countryman of that province, William by name ; a 
man stuffed with riches, but unduly intent upon stuf- 
fing his stomach. Oh, how gluttony ( gula) degrades 
and enslaves a man ! He used to slink away from his 
own abode and into another district, because he could 
not have them at home, and would there consume in 
carousals and potations the goods of other men, until 



170 TAM O' SHANTER. 

the hand of God laid hold of him in the following 
fashion. Once, as he sat alone beside the fire in the 
house of an innkeeper, he was rather devouring than 
drinking the ale he had bought, and when all the in- 
mates of that house were busy at their work out-of- 
doors, there appeared to the foolish man the hideous 
figure of a spirit of the air sitting on the opposite side 
of the fire, with black body and ghastly face and 
fiery eyes of horrid magnitude. At sight of whom, 
the man of Bacchus was astonished, but, emboldened 
by liquor which sends the unarmed to battle, he began 
to inquire [of the figure] whose servant he was and 
what he wanted there. The other, with apparent 
pride, disdaining these demands, asked with a grin 
what person could be so very ill-informed as not to 
know him, the owner of a residence there, who for 
thirty years past, had held the foremost rank among 
the topers of the place. 'And to show that I do not 
deceive you, ' he said, ' come and see what I have 
gathered here from the gluttony of ne'er-do-weels.' 
At once, William jumped across the fire and beheld 
by the side of the spirit of deceit a vessel so full of 
abominations as well-nigh to drive the fool demented. 
'What you behold,' said the servant of iniquity, 'I 
have collected from the vomitings of your boon com.- 



TAM O' SHANTER. IJl 

panions in your debauches.' Upon this, with his 

understanding awakened, which hitherto, as Solomon 

says, had not felt the rod ; and alive to his impending 

danger, he of his own free will uttered a vow to the 

Lord that never, under whatsoever necessity, for the 

remainder of his life, would he taste strong drink 

again ; which promise he still steadfastly keeps, to the 

wonder of all who had knowledge of him before. He 

acknowledges what he saw with his own eyes, and he 

related what is told above to two men of worth and 

credit with whom I was well acquainted." 

The characteristics of the demon here make him 

explicitly the hand of God. This is quite a normal 

mediseval idea. Chaucer, in the Frere's tale, makes 

a fiend say of himself and his fellows : 

" For som tyrae we ben Goddes instruments 
And menes to done his comandements." 

The allegation of the devil, in our own Frere's tale, 

that he was the champion toper of the district, opens 

up too wide a field of investigation to pursue here. 

It may mean that the toper was dead, and that this 

was a devil-ghost of the '* goblin- damned " type to 

which Hamlet feared his father's spirit might belong. 

Chaucer's above-quoted fiend says : 

" Som tyme we aryse 
With dede bodies in ful sondry wyse. 



172 TAM O' SHANTER. 

The devil in "Tarn o' Shanter" is of quite another 
order from that which William saw across the hearth 
in the middle of the tavern floor. The two have in 
coDomon the fact that each is really the subjective 
creation of a mind inflamed by drink. Among some 
curious points of contact is the chronicler's observa- 
tion on the courage-bestowing qualities of ale. Auda- 
cior ex potu is as happy as Burns's own : 

" Inspiring bold John Barleycorn ! 
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!" 

And the picture of William, quizzing the devil as to 
who he was and what he was after, is as whimsical 
an incongruity as the free-and-easy greeting which 
Burns himself addressed to Death when he fore- 
gathered so memorably with him after a late sitting 
at Tarbolton. 

" Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil!" 
said Burns, and the saying is here completely vindi- 
cated. 

The vessel of abominations is a realistic and posi- 
tively Dantean touch, a very intense and powerful if 
coarse image, which will stand comparison with any 
in the catalogue of horrors in "Tam o' Shanter." It 
has the closest afl&nity to the lawyers' tongues and 
priests' hearts which the poet, on grounds not con- 



TAM O' SHANTER. 173 

vincing, revised out of his poem. The reformation of 
William doubtless commended itself to the friar, as a 
fact admirably fitted to furnish a very proper and 
improving conclusion for the terrification of tavern- 
keepers and their too-sedulous customers. Tam o' 
Shanter, on the other hand — it would have been com- 
plete artistic ruin to reform him and Bums ; wisely 
and dramatically stopped short, leaving us to our own 
imaginings, if we feel the need of an anti-climax. 



